Snowden The Ranch Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
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Wayne and Virginia Snowden settled on their ranch in the eastern hills between St. Helena and Rutherford in 1955, and its fruit has since gone to Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Silver Oak, and Caymus; the family's own label arrived in 1993. Diana Snowden Seysses, a third-generation Snowden who became oenologist at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy in 2003, has made the wines since 2005 from vineyards farmed without herbicides and picked entirely by hand. The Ranch is the estate's second Cabernet, and in 2022 it came from two blocks on volcanic rhyolite: the east-facing Lost Orchard, the highest and coolest on the property, and the west-facing Pool Block, the lowest. Merlot, 24 percent of the blend, gives it softness in youth. Fermented on native yeasts in stainless steel, it spent just seven months in French oak, 30 percent new, and was bottled unfined. Ripe black cherry and plum lead, followed by clove, tobacco, cedar, and a touch of cocoa; the tannins are fine-grained, and the site's natural freshness lifts the finish. The family farms only 23 of the ranch's 160 acres and leaves the rest to mountain lions, bobcats, and black bears, a division of labor that seems to suit everyone.
