Diamond Creek Vineyards has been one of my favorite wineries since I first tasted their wonderful Cabernets many years ago. The reason that I love the wines is not only because they taste great but also because all the wines show their distinctive terroirs clearly.

 

One of our regular customers who is a savvy California wine lover held a wine party the other night at Hortensia where I work as Head Sommelier. I didn't ask him if I could use his name in this blog so I would call him "Dr. K."

 

Dr. K has been a serious California wine lover for a long time during which he has collected amazing selections of California wines, ranging from a vertical selection of Harlan estate, many vintages of Screaming Eagle, Dalla Valle Maya or even a rare bottle of Araujo "Viognier" Eisele Vineyard.

 

Dr. K had been dreaming of having a special wine party dinner where he could share his favorite wines with his friends, comparing rare bottles of Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill MICROCLIMATE" '02 and '99 with normal Volcanic Hill of the same (or similar) vintages as well as again, very rare old vintages of the same vineyard, Volcanic Hill '94, '91 and '81.

 

All the Diamond Creek wines are difficult to get because of both its popularity and rarity but Microclimate series is the one that is almost impossible to find, especially outside the US. The Microclimate wines are special cuvees that are produced once in a while when the winemaker finds a particularly outstanding barrel of wine from a certain section of the vineyard and bottles it individually rather than blending it with wine from other sections. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how rare the wines are, considering the fact that even the blended ones have a cult status.

 

Dr. K was (or has been as usual) so generous that he offered me to taste all the wines he brought for the guests.

 

Here are my tasting notes;

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill" 2002 (decanted 2 hours before serving)
Densely packed and structured. It has just started revealing subtle earthy bouquets of tobacco, dry leaf, lead pencil yet still retains ripe yet fresh fruit aromas such as cassis, blackberry and black cherry at the forefront. It holds a firm tannin structure that restrains the ripeness of fruit on the palate. Very concentrated and wild.

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill" 1999 (decanted 2 hours before serving)
Tightly knit yet graceful. It shows a higher ratio of earthy bouquets than '02 because of the longer bottle age in a more developed style such as cigar box, humus and oriental spices along with ripe yet fresher cassis and blackberry aromas with higher acidity that proves that '99 was a cooler year than '02. Very complex yet still has a long life in the future.

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill Microclimate" 2001 (decanted 2 hours before serving)
Dense, intense and substantial. It has even more concentrated yet detailed aromas and flavors in a much bigger scale. Amazing depth and staying power. Very focused with tightly knit fruit and nuanced subtle bouquets with an overtone of earthiness. It still retains a massive tannin structure at the core packed with ripe and rich fruit.

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill Microclimate 1999 (decanted 2 hours before serving)
Refined, seamless and complex. More elegant and subtle than '01 yet retains the same intensity and concentration. It shows more complex bouquets of cigar box and dry leaf with mature fruit flavors mixed with dry flowers and roasted bay leaf and sage. Very complex. On the palate, it is tightly focused with great fruit purity that is still there, being pushed forward by the ripe and fine grained tannins, leaving complex earthy bouquets in the finish that is quite long.

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill" 1994 (opened 2 hours earlier and decanted right before serving)
Elegant, harmonious yet broad. The ratio of fruit aroma and earthy bouquet is now reversed, showing more cigar box, dry leaf and oriental spices than fruit aromas that are more developed into mature fruit flavors that give UMAMI-like impression on the palate. The style is very similar to '99 yet is more developed because of the age, suggesting that '99 might be maturing in the similar way. But who knows? The similar kids can be very different in 5 years. The same thing happens to wine as well.

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill" 1991 (opened 2 hours earlier and served directly from the bottle)
Polished, discreet yet plush. Gorgeous aromas of ripe black fruits that have been mature enough to be nicely intermingled with earthy bouquets of cigar box and humus are jumping out of the glass. Very impressive. On the palate, it is a bit dry fruit cakey. And it has a seamless tannin structure that gives the smooth mouth feel yet still retains a firm core at the center that prevents itself from falling apart or being flabby. The finish is amazingly long.

 

Diamond Creek "Volcanic Hill" 1981 (opened 30 minutes earlier and served directly from the bottle)
Extraordinarily pure yet tremendously complex. I am literally speechless not because English is my second language but also even in Japanese I would be so. So would be everyone else. Who said that California wine cannot age well? I would be happy to go to the Narita airport flying to Paris with this bottle of wine and put some in as many glasses as possible to give to the biased wine lovers on the Champs-Élysées street, showing how beautifully California wine can age or even on the street in front of this restaurant in Tokyo. (Japanese French wine lovers are even more prejudiced on American wines in general.) It is incredible that the purity and the complexity, the completely different or opposite elements, can co-exist in just one wine. Amazing.

 

Some guests at the table said that the wines are more like Bordeaux than California Cabernet. To the extent that I'm doing the "Bridge Wine" thing in my wine program at the restaurant to make it easier for Japanese French wine lovers to understand California wine, I agree. I'd give two to three bridges to all the Diamond Creek Cabernets. But, to be very honest with you, well, I don't think so. It is the way a classic California Cabernet ages with time.

 

California Cabernets that many people think of are the ones that are made in the excessively modern way that could be made anywhere in the world as long as the vineyard can get a lot of sunshine and there is a winemaker with a master degree of enology (and a deep pocket) with no respect to the wine culture. Given that, yes, the Diamond Creek Cabernets are closer to Bordeaux than modern California Cabernets.

 

But it doesn't mean that it tastes like Bordeaux. It absolutely tastes Californian. The wines that we tasted that night are the ones that cannot come from anywhere else but the small vineyard high up in the mountain in Napa Valley that has a distinctive microclimate or terroir. The wines don't taste like Bordeaux in that the wines have riper and richer fruit and more generous, mature tannins with great purity in fruit that cannot be achieved without the California sunshine yet still can reveal complex classic Cabernet bouquets without crossing the fine line between great Cabernet and just great red wine.

 

All the guests at the table seemed impressed by the wines that Dr. K generously offered. So was I. Probably, it was the best wine tasting dinner that I have ever attended. And I felt that this kind of a wine party could not happen in my life time. But Dr. K said to me at the end of the dinner "Would you be interested in a vertical tasting of *Lake vineyard Cabs?"
*Diamond Creek "Lake" Cabernet has been produced only 10 times in the past. Obviously the rarest wine.

 

How could I not be?