2022 Caterwaul Phelan Ranch750ml

I’ll admit the first few tastings of vintage 2022 were a bit disappointing but even in the toughest of vintages, there are always bright spots.  The Phelan Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon lot, a combination of the Papa and Elizabeth blocks, was always the shining star in every portfolio sampling.  As we tasted through everything, the best wines were the ones most similar in color and structure to the vintages that preceded them.  Here we didn’t have that history, so we were looking for a product of place.  Sitting way above Lake Hennessey east of St. Helena in rocky, red-dirted soil, we knew something akin to Pritchard Hill is what we should find.   Here we have a wine that tastes more like a 2021 than a 2022.  The wine starts with a saturated to the rim black hue that only turns to ruby at the outermost edge.  The fruit profile is kaleidoscopic starting with black/purple and moving to a cool blue, wintergreen note.  On the nose, there are savory notes of creosote, sage, fresh tobacco and crushed rock, the latter note informing what you’d expect from the soil profile of this mountaintop vineyard.  Structure is big but round, with no pokey tannins sticking out to clip the finish.  This wine is one of the few true joys from the 2022 vintage.  The only thing wrong with this bottling is how much we made, a scant 130 cases.