- CRITICAL REVIEWS
- WINEMAKER NOTES
Robert Parker Wine Advocate
2019 Hundred Acre 'Ark Vineyard' Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain, USA
CONTROL IS ONLY AN ILLUSION
The saying goes, “hindsight is 20/20,” but in this case it was 2019. For years now, Mother Nature has given us some of the greatest and most spectacular growing seasons, but in 2020, she grew angry. We have heard countless times about the impact of the wildfires and the lives it so painfully touched. The last weekend of September proved to be a landmark moment in wine country for all the wrong reasons and it was solemn reminder that we can only control so much. At Hundred Acre we are obsessed in the way that we care for and attend to our vineyards and ultimately the wines we make, but as we were reminded, the destiny of what we make is largely determined by a force greater than ourselves. One of the gifts though that arose from the ashes was our appreciation for the breath-taking beauty of the 2019 vintage. In Jayson’s words, “it is a precious time capsule” and a reminder of why we make wine. One thing you might have noticed is the name Morgan’s Way. From the 2019 vintage and beyond, the previously known Kayli Morgan wine will be known as Morgan’s Way. An homage to the love Jayson has for his only daughter and a slight nod to the power that the love of his little girl has on him.
Winemaker notes
All Hundred Acre wines are made by sorting the fruit berry by berry, fermenting in small,
French oak fermenters, and long aging in the finest barriques. The secret to Hundred Acre is no compromise and no detail overlooked, ever. The 2019 vintage is the best I have ever known. It is simply staggering. Must have been fate, since there is no 2020 vintage because of the fires that devastated the Napa Valley.
Estate vineyard
The single ARK is located just outside St. Helena, California at the base of Howell Mountain. It was originally planted in the 1880s, but was sadly lost to Prohibition. It took us five years to rebuild; she is our pride and joy. The ARK is comprised of nine different blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon, planted meter by meter in nine different volcanic soil strata. The vineyard stretches through a sixty-million-year time sequence: three ancient beach fronts, a prehistoric weapons quarry, and spans a 180-degree arc of the sun over its half-mile length. Hot afternoon sun known to damage aromatics in the fruit (on the hottest days), is blocked by the shade of Glass Mountain (named for the rare obsidian rock found in the soil and for ancient weapons such as arrowheads) which rises to the western side of the ARK vineyard. As with all of our vineyards, we pick only when the fruit is perfectly ripe; this doesn’t always happen at once. It is common for us to make multiple passes through the vineyard, picking different clusters from the same vines as they reach perfect maturity. This attention to detail is critical to making a wine the caliber of Hundred Acre.
Cooperage
Hundred Acre wines are aged for a minimum of 30 months in the finest, center-cut French oak barrique. The stave wood is hand-selected for ultra-tight grain, then air dried for three years before being made into barrels.