2014 AXR Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Description

The AXR dream began with four friends sitting around a table sharing, dreaming, laughing, and occasionally sipping! The room was filled with an intense passion for wine and a good intention to be true to themselves and the history of Napa Valley: this is where AXR was born. By utilizing modern and innovative techniques in the cellar, we extract the unique soul of Napa Valley’s soils into wines enjoyable now, or many years to come.

The FAB 4, as we call them, are our three founders: Kelly Trevethan, Mark Schratz and Don Van Laeken, as well as our consulting winemaker, Jean Hoefliger. This group of unassuming romantics believes in paying homage to the pioneers who had the vision, planted the vines, and grew the Napa Valley lifestyle. Our team is looking forward to engaging with new people, telling a joke or two, and sharing great wine!

If only these vines could talk, they would tell you stories of the old Napa Valley. The history of our estate is compounded in layers; rooted in historic tales of fierce Native American hunting grounds, wild west pioneers and the first woman vintner of California in 1886. It has changed hands over the course of 134 years to become a brewery, restaurant, inn, winery and saloon. Tales of love, lust, heartbreak, murders and great fortune create an imaginative backdrop to our present-day vision of AXR. Today, we are a winery that pays homage to its history and blazes the trail of excitement and innovation in Napa Valley as the pioneers before us did.

Wanting to be reminded every day to live fully and to leave a lasting impression on our layer of history. Named after the AxR rootstock (Aramond x Rupestris) that was so prominent in building the modern California wine industry, AxR#1 eventually succumbed to Phylloxera and most of California wine country was left as a blank canvas. Vintners now had a chance to replant and to rethink the entire structure of the vineyards; attention was paid to the terroir and unique varietals were researched. This was truly a turning point in the wine industry as we know it. AXR invites you to go on a journey through the past, present and future of Napa Valley.

Balanced and elegant wines are the hallmarks of the 2014 vintage, a crop similar to 2012 in terms of the characteristics. The weather was near perfect, and, for the first time, there was no effect of the drought on the vines which by now were accustomed to the dry spring. Harvest began early and by mid-August even the Cabernet Sauvignon had ripened, thus protecting the acidity of the wines. Deep, dark black olive with touches of eggplant and purple velvet. Explosions of cedar, blackberries, gingerbread, sage, macerated cherries, licorice, cotton candy with soap from Marseille and potpourri. A velvety entrance evolving on a backbone of acidity lingering on granular tannins with touches of cherry pie, cassis, plums, fern and tobacco. -Winemaker’s Notes