One of my most fun days on my Napa Valley Masters Program trip back in 2007 was the viticulture day out in the vineyards with Bruce Cakebread. In March 2017, a most enjoyable afternoon of wine tasting, pizza making and eating was spent with Bruce in Napa Valley. Tonight, I completed the triangle with a most incredible tasting with Bruce’s wife, Rosemary Cakebread, winemaker of Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon based blends, Gallica, in Napa Valley.

Rosemary, previously the winemaker at Spottswoode Vineyard & Winery (1997 to 2006), established Gallica as recently as 2007 where her wines are already making their mark in the industry. Rosemary has earned a reputation for crafting consistent, elegant and restrained wine styles throughout her winemaking career and she describes her Gallica wines as “wonderfully expressive, balanced artisanal wines made from organic vineyards.”

Gallica Vintage Vertical ~ 2009 to 2014

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, 14.4 Abv. 

Oakville, Coombsville, St. Helena. 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot, 81% new French Oak. Taught broody nose, mineral laden, brambly with plenty of herbal spice. Ripe earthy red currant fruit, sweet tannins and a creamy luscious mouthfeel. Fine, precise acids and an impressively mineral graphite finish.

(Wine Safari Score: 92+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, 14.4 Abv. 

Oakville Organic Vineyard. 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 7% Petit Verdot, 19 months in 78% new French Oak. Lifted piercing perfume, purple blossoms, violets and a higher toned polished mahogany, black berry and pithy black cherry spice. Palate also reveals cool dark black berry fruits, creamy vanilla pod spice, liquorice stick and delicious Cabernet Sauvignon purity. Classy, picante style.

(Wine Safari Score: 93+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2011, 14.1 Abv

Oakville Organic Vineyard. 96% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot, 19 months in 70% new French Oak. Very pronounced dusty gravelly mineral nose with herbal spice, graphite and leafy characters from a fairly cool vintage. Texture is sleek, precise, and quite suave, elegantly textured but with more angular presence in the mouth. Pronounced acids shape a cool, taught palate that displays beautiful black cherry and bramble berry fruits, herbal spice and silky, dry tannins on the finish. Classy and classically elegant wine. Very nice.

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2012, 14.5 Abv.

Oakville Organic Vineyard. 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 20 months in French Oak. Taught deep dark rich broody wine with tension, dark spicy Cabernet cedar and herbal notes, dusty graphite, hedge row spice and pithy black current fruits. Fine sweet front palate, supple entry, lovely fleshy black pastille weight of fruit that is more opulent than the nose suggests. Such precision, pin point mineral tannins and delicious pithy graphite tension and power. Very impressive wine.

(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2013, 14.5 Abv.

Oakville Organic Vineyard. 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc, 20 months in French Oak. Sweet sour red plum, wet tobacco, forest leaves and pronounced exotic red fruit notes. Quite dusty, granitic and mineral, with dark black picante fruit nuances developing. Palate texture is lush, plush, creamy, dreamy, with expansive sweet tannins, fleshy blueberry and cassis pastille fruit weight. A real turbo charged vintage in the best sense. Harmonious balance, this wine does not put a foot out of place. Hedonistic, opulent, but retains classical shape. A really impressive all round great wine from a fantastic benchmark vintage.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2014, 14.5 Abv.

Oakville Organic Vineyard. 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc, 19 months in French Oak. Youthful, opulent exotic nose brimming with blue berry crumble, mulberries, cassis pastille fruits, vanilla bean spice, graphite and such delicious opulent aromatic lift. The palate is ultra opulent but also hugely concentrated and generous. Tannins are textural, grippy but sweet, acids ultra vibrant but then quietly melt away into the mouth watering blueberry fruit concentration. Young and precocious, the brûlée coffee bean espresso complexity really underlines the showy attractiveness of this wine. A definite crowd pleaser. Give it another year in bottle to assimilate the oak more seamlessly.

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)