When planting our estate vineyard in 1999, the slope and remoteness of the site proved challenging work. More than fifteen years later we are gratified by and very proud of the superior Cabernet produced from Cloudy's Vineyard. The higher elevation, excellent drainage, and slightly cooler morning temperatures imbue the fruit with distinctly mountain characteristics.
Wine AdvocateThe 2013 Janzen Cabernet Sauvignon Cloudy's Vineyard hails from the Dutch Henry Canyon between the Switchback and Hourglass vineyards, is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and a more backward mountain style with noticeable tannin and structure. With a dense purple color and plenty of blueberry, black raspberry, violets and oak spice, it is powerful, full-bodied and moderately tannic. Forget this for 4-5 years and drink it over the following three decades.
Connoisseurs' Guide to California WineIf the differences among the Janzen Cabernets are fewer than the traits that they share, each has its own voice and this one speaks directly to cassis, root beer, cola and cream sweetened coffee. It, too, is a big and very broad wine with a wonderfully sustained sense of well-rendered fruit keeping pace with its very obvious oak, and it shows uncannily fine balance for the ample offering that it is. It is less about elegance just now than it is about richness, but it is free of palpable heat despite its obvious ripeness, and its last-minute tannins, while brusque at the moment, are matched step for step by relentless fruit and provide no more than the right measure of structural grip that aging requires.
Wine SpectatorPleasantly oaky and cedary, with nutmeg and hazelnut accents to the licorice and blackberry flavors, turning to mocha, espresso, dried herb and underbrush details. Finishes with a potent aftertaste. Drink now through 2028. 197 cases made.