Snowden Vineyards The Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, USA 2021

Producer: Snowden Vineyards

Grapes: 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot

Where: Napa Valley, California

Country: USA

Taste: The 2021 Ranch is dense and crunchy with aromas of crushed black cherries, brambles and plum. On the palate it is bright and full of red fruit, with a crisp finish.

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2021 is an exciting vintage for the Ranch cuvée. As always blended entirely from estate grown fruit, the Cabernet Sauvignon came from the Lost Orchard block at the top of the property and the Pool block at the lowest elevation on our 160 acre homestead, enhanced by Merlot from the Lost Vineyard block and a dash of Petit Verdot. Fermented using only wild, native yeasts. Aged 19 months in 50% new French oak barrels. Bottled unfined and unfiltered May 5, 2023. 

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When Wayne and Virginia Snowden acquired the property in 1955, there were fewer than 7 acres of vineyard, together with some 6 acres of prunes, walnuts, plums, and peaches. The grapes were sold to local cooperative wineries, where they went into the two great cuvees of the day: mixed white and mixed black. The Snowdens began to expand the vineyards in 1962. Cabernet Sauvignon was first planted on the property at that time, using cuttings from the Fay vineyard in what would later become the Stags Leap District. Wayne Snowden died in 1977 and grape production was minimal for the next few years. Scott and Randy Snowden, Wayne and Virginia’s sons, assumed responsibility for the vineyards upon their father’s death. In 1981, they removed all of the then-producing vineyards and orchards and replanted them to Cabernet Sauvignon. That vineyard is now called “The Brothers Vineyard” and was the first to acquire budwood from the new Jordan vineyard near Healdsburg. Through the 1980s, all of the Snowden grapes were sold to Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Commencing in the early 1990s, the Snowdens began retaining grapes for their own wines – enough to produce 383 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon in 1993 and gradually growing to approximately 2,000 cases today. Commencing with the 2005 vintage, Scott’s daughter, Diana Snowden Seysses became the winemaker and she continues in that position today.