2005 Senders Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 750ml
This Cabernet Sauvignon is made from a blend of two of Napa’s premier regions, Stag’s Leap and Oakville. The Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard boarders the famous To Kalon vineyard. These grapes bring elegance and structure. The Stag’s Leap adds red fruits like strawberry, raspberry and candied black cherries. To add additional mouth feel we added a touch of Cabernet Franc.
After 20 months in small French Oak barrels the wine is ruby to dark red and shows black cherry and currant in the nose. The mouth delivers a balance between currant, oak and tannin. The finish shows currant with some vanilla and caramel which hangs around after you swallow. This wine will improve dramatically over the next 6 months.
Cabernet Sauvignon and a steak are a classic match. Because this Cabernet has the restrained finesse from the Oakville grapes it matches perfectly with roasted pork and will age well.
As owner & winemaker of Senders Wines, Craig is able to maintain a high standard of quality in each, small-batch release. Small releases mean a high attention to details and greater quality. Their personal touch permeates every aspect of the winery from the hand-crafted wines to the Texas drawl you’ll hear on the phone.
The Wine: Winemaking refers to the process of making wine but is a progressive verb because, unlike most industries, it is a process that never stops; our wines are built to impress upon release and age to a smooth complexity of layering flavors. The wines reflect the terroir of California with special effort made to pick the fruit when the flavor is robust but not overripe. Beginning in the Harvest season, we meticulously taste and handpick our grapes when they reach the desired maturity. Our grapes are handpicked into half ton bins, gently destemmed, and crushed into small fermentation bins at a small custom crush facility in southern Napa Valley.
Rather than pumping over, the cap is punched down several times daily intensifying fruit flavors and decreasing harsh tannins. After fermentation the wine is pressed into small French oak barrels for completion of secondary fermentation. The wines are carefully watched while they barrel age allowing the flavors from the fruit, tannin, oak and acid to blend together and develop additional complexity. Typically, we bottle the Pinot Noir after 10-11 months in the barrel and the Cabernet Sauvignon after 22-23 months of barrel aging- another process heavily dependent on Craig’s expert vigilance. Our detailed approach balances fruit, acid and tannins without an overabundance of alcohol leaving a wine that can be enjoyed in this decade or the next.
The Winemaker: As we push further into the 21st century, few frontiers are left to us. On the cutting edge of science, Craig pushes the envelope in the tasting room and the operating room. Armed with an insatiable curiosity, Craig’s love of exploration is only limited by the harvest season.
For Craig, the winemaking process begins not with the soil but with the mouth. His experience as an otolaryngologist gives him not only the scientific understanding to craft amazing wines but the intimate knowledge of our flavor sensory required to bring out each wine’s qualities- reverse engineering desire into wine.
Beyond Craig’s scientific and medical background, he maintains deep relationships with growers throughout the Sonoma and Napa appellations- using grapes grown in their most ideal environments. These amazing relationships allow Craig’s wines to be as diverse as his interests: everything from Pinots on the coast to Cabernets from the valley.
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