Holloway Cellars Amber Knolls Cabernet Sauvignon

The 2004 Holloway Cellars Amber Knolls Cabernet is bold and full bodied, with enough substance for time in the cellar yet already smooth and accessible if you can’t wait to drink it.  Amber Knolls is in the newly recognized Red Hills Appelation. The wine is produced from 98% cabernet sauvignon grapes from the Lake County, California vineyard called Amber Knolls, with the addition of 2% Cab Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot from adjoining blocks of the same vineyard (see photo below).

In the words of another:
“Tasting the wine is a real pleasure. It is very much like some other hillside Cabernet that goes for much more money.  It has a lot of complex fruit up front and the oak is in balance which to me indicates it will age well. …. We tasted the '02, '03 and '04. The '02 is holding well, balanced with no indication of age. Its fruit is a little more subdued compared to the '03 which seems to just be a bigger vintage.  The '04 has even more fruit than the '03 but has not opened up completely. It may end up being the best of the three vintages but it seems to still need a little more bottle age to completely open.  The consistency of these three vintages and similarity in fruit and balance is a tribute to the wine maker and his ability to produce the wine year after year.”  Winery_Times blog by Mark Marino.

Essential Statistics:
Vineyard- Amber Knolls, Red Hill Appelation, Lake County, California, altitude 2200 feet.

Grape Varietals: Cabernet clone #337, 2% Cab Franc, Malbec, and Petite Verdot

Harvest: Picked at 25.5% Brix. Grapes harvested at night to insure that the highest quality fruit arrives at the winery in the cool of early morning.

Fermentation: Open top fermentation tanks for approximately 3 weeks. 

Barrels: Combination of French and American Oak. Wine is aged for 18 to 22 months in barrel with no fining or filtering prior to bottling.

Cases Produced: 148

Amber Knolls Vineyard

As with each previous vintage the grapes for this bold and full bodied hillside cabernet were grown in a Lake County vineyard known as Amber Knolls. It is within the newly recognized Red Hills Appelation.

For the original vintage, rows were selected under the tutelage of cult wine producer, Fred Schrader of Schrader Cellars, with an eye toward the ideal clone, altitude, soil and sun exposure.  The grapes from these rows did not disappoint and have provided fruit for each vintage to date.

The first vintage was produced with the understanding that continued access to the grapes depended on the final product meeting the high standards of the expert palates of Fred Schrader and another world class wine taster.  As is obvious by the presentation of the subsequent four vintages, the wine was deemed worthy of the grapes!