Here’s a look at some current releases of St. Helena AVA Cabernet Sauvignon, and a couple of whites for good measure. The reviews are based on samples. 

2018 Ballentine Chenin Blanc Betty’s Vineyard St. Helena, Napa Valley 88+ 13.9% 750ml screw cap $30

Ballentine Vineyards have been making wines from the first of their estate plots, Pocai, since 1906. Betty’s Vineyard, established about 40 years later, is located near the winery on Highway 29, just north of Deer Park Road. It’s planted to Chenin Blanc, Malvasia Biana, and Merlot.

There’s not much Chenin Blanc left in Napa Valley. That’s a shame, because it’s a good climate for the grape and can make appetizing table wines. That’s clear from this release from Ballentine, which grows theirs sustainably on Bale loam and Bale gravelly loam soils.

Winemaker Bruce Devlin fermented and aged 20% of it in new Hungarian oak barrels. The balance was in stainless steel. For those of you who like stats, total acidity is 7.6 and pH is just 3.10. Crunchy!

The light, lemon-colored wine offers classic Chenin Blanc fruit aromas—yellow apples and pears—along with nice accents of lemon blossom and tapioca pudding. The palate is dry and quite mouthwatering with light, appetizing texture. The flavors are decidedly citrusy, tasting of the juice, pith, and peel of lemons and oranges, but there’s a bite of apple too. The flavors gradually fade to mineral on the finish.

This will be very good pairing for young, creamy cheeses, salads, and for dishes with light, white fish or poached chicken breast. I’d like it with raw oysters too. 250 cases made.

2018 Salvestrin Sauvignon Blanc Crystal Springs Vineyard St. Helena, Napa Valley 90 14.2% 750ml $25

The Salvestrin family has been growing grapes in Napa Valley for nearly a century. They’ve been using sustainable practices for 80 years. The winery and their primary vineyard, both certified Napa Green, are on Highway 29, south of the town of St. Helena.

The gravelly clay-loam Crystal Springs Vineyard, which the Salvestrins also farm, is on the east side of the valley though, 550-800 feet up on a western facing slope of Howell Mountain. It’s still within the St. Helena AVA.

This wine is 100% Sauvignon Blanc. It fermented and aged six months in a combination of neutral oak barrels and stainless steel. Fine lees added a bit of richness and texture.

The nose is elegant rather than punchy. Passion fruit, drying grass, and nopales are the primary aromas. The dry, medium-bodied palate has a great, satiny mouthfeel and is gently, but persistently, mouthwatering. It’s flavors include lemon and orange pith, guava and green chili peppers, but is marked by saline minerality. I’d love to try it with chicken or cheese enchiladas in green sauce.

St. Helena AVA Cabernet Sauvignon

The wines in this small survey of St. Helena AVA Cabernet Sauvignon weren’t selected strategically. They represent an essentially random selection of sites and styles. They show a lot of similarities, which you’d hope for from a single AVA. But they don’t all taste alike by any means.

The wines are generally fruit-forward, rather than savory, but they aren’t excessively fruity. Color is deep and the noses are expressive, but not shouty. Body is medium-plus and balance is good, though most of the wines lean more toward ripeness than acidity. The mouthfeel generally shows measured plushness with fine-grained tannins. And they’re wines which will age nicely, but are ready to drink now, with or without food.

Specific aromas and flavors are naturally much more variable, based on site, vintage, clones, other varieties in the blend, etc. The flavors which are most common between the wines are barrel-derived notes of caramel and chocolate. Aside from flavors, key differences between individual wines are acidity and the degree of tannin integration.

2016 Ballentine Vineyards Fig Tree Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena, Napa Valley 88 14.5% 750ml $75

Ballentine Fig Tree Vineyard

This estate vineyard, which Ballentine has owned since 1949, is in northeastern St. Helena AVA with western exposure. Despite the afternoon sun, Ballentine says it’s typically the last of their sites to ripen. The blend is 98.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Malbec, and 0.5% Petite Sirah.

The nose is round, complex, and inviting with briary red and black fruit, cocoa, and dried mint rising from the glass immediately. Swirling reveals caramel and black currant jam. The flavors revolve around tasty, ripe red and black fruit, chocolate and savory, spicy herb, but there’s an attractive minty line. This wine is more textural than some, perhaps due to the splash of Petite Sirah. The tannins are fine and soft, but need a good bit of air to come together in a way that shapes the palate well and doesn’t clip the warming finish. Best from 2022 through 2030.

2016 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena, Napa Valley 94 13.1% 750ml $100

This wine from Cathy Corison is a roughly 50-50 blend of estate fruit and that sourced from long-term grower-partners. The vines are generally from the Mayacamas bench. Corison farms their vines organically. They also are extremely careful with canopy management to achieve good ripeness and tannin development without high sugars, thus the resulting alcohol is very moderate. This bottle is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. It aged for 20 month in French oak barrels, half of which were new.

Cathy Corison tasting in her winery, 2019. Photo credit: doug wilder | studio 1529

Even tasting blind, the intriguing, savory nose of perfumed dark flowers, subtle black pepper, leather, black fruit, and bay leaf whispered Corison in my ear. The medium-bodied palate is disciplined and juicy with Old World sophistication. Its toothsome tannins are soft on the attack, then firm up to balance the mouthwatering, ripe-tangy fruit. The wine develops with air, but maintains its generally savory demeanor. (BTW, Cathy doesn’t recommend decanting, preferring to let them evolve in the glass.)

This wine’s drinking very well now, but has the fruit, acidity, and tannins to age a good, long while. Drink now through 2035+.

2014 Pellet Estate Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena, Napa Valley 90+ 14.7% 750ml $95

The label, Pellet Estate, only dates back to 2010, but its vineyard was first planted by Henry Pellet in 1863. It’s adjacent to the Dr. Crane vineyard in the AVA’s southwestern zone. The sustainably farmed, Pellet Estate grapes are vinified by Tom Rinaldi. A renowned, Napa Valley winemaker, Rinaldi began his career at Freemark Abbey, was founding winemaker at Duckhorn, then went on to be the longtime winemaker for BV and Hewitt.

The Pellet Estate vineyard

2014 Pellet Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is a voluptuous wine that walks the line between savory and fruit-forward. The nose is generous with its jammy red and black fruit, but there’s also plenty of dry herb. Side notes include graham cracker, then mint and, eventually, red cherry and strawberry too.

The palate has medium-plus body with dense, velvety tannins. The ripe fruit and dried, aromatic leaf flavors are consistent with the nose, but supplemented by dark chocolate. The alcohol shows a bit, but it would be a lovely to share a bottle with friends over a well-marbled rib-eye steak. 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2030.

2017 Pellet Henry’s Reserve 94 14.7% 750ml $150

The Pellet Henry’s Reserve has grabbed my full attention at various, non-blind, Appellation St. Helena tastings in the past. Now it’s done so in a blind tasting. The Pellet Reserve can be quite different from year to year, because it’s not made with a preconceived focus on variety, block, style. Instead, it’s one or two barrels that set themselves apart qualitatively in that particular year.

The 2017 is 76% Cabernet Sauvignon and 24% Merlot. The blend delivers an opaque, ruby-purple wine with a festive, spicy nose that overflows with sweet black fruit, cinnamon, vanilla, ripe red cherry, sweet herb, and light notes of toasted oak. The palate has medium-plus body and is persistently mouthwatering. There’s some peppery warmth in the mouth, but it’s very nicely balanced by abundant fruit and well-integrated tannins. Nobody would blame you for drinking it right away, but it’ll age a good 15 years.

2016 St. Helena Winery Estate Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena, Napa Valley 91 15.0% 750ml $90

St. Helena Winery, established in 2000, has 13 acres under vine. The varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon (six clones), Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. The vineyard, organic and certified Napa Green, is located just west of Silverado Trail and the Napa River, on the northern end of Pratt Road.

At the St. Helena Winery vineyard and hospitality area

The production team is excellent. Aaron Pott, consulting winemaker, is a veteran of Chateau Troplong-Mondot, Chateau La Tour Figeac, Newton, St. Clement, and Quintessa, among others. Lindsey Wallingford, winemaker and vineyard manager, whose past work includes Screaming Eagle and Bryant Family.

This six-clone, 100% varietal, St. Helena AVA Cabernet Sauvignon is estate-grown on Bale loam soil. The opaque, ruby-purple juice serves up lush flavors of ripe black cherry and black currant, wood, baking spices, and vanilla with undertones of charcoal and sweet herb. The result is fruit-driven, but those flavors are very well balanced by the savory elements, making the long, warming finish quite appetizing. Body is medium-plus and the tannins are sensual, starting out fine-grained and moving to velvet as the wine breathes in glass.

2015 St. Helena Winery Sympa Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 92 15.0% 750ml $125

The Sympa comes from a single, old Napa Valley clone, the See clone, grown on one very gravelly block of the estate vineyard. The wine calls to mind the phrase “iron fist in a velvet glove,” though it’s not at all like the wines of Margaux to which that analogy typically refers. This is an opaque, purple wine that is quite soft and plush on the attack. But that texture quickly gains backbone in the mouth, providing focus and structure.

Harmonious flavors of blackberry compote, dark chocolate, and caramel persist throughout the very long finish, but notes of dry earth, graphite, and dried bay leaf build to dominance by the end. I suspect the tannins and savoriness are a testament to the rocky, volcanic soils and minimally available water, as See-clone Cabernet often produces wine ruled by jammy fruit. Sympa should evolve very nicely, developing seamless texture and even more complexity over the next ten years.

2016 Salvestrin Cabernet Sauvignon Dr. Crane Vineyard St. Helena, Napa Valley 93 14.8% 750ml $70

Salvestrin Winery Inn, the Victorian home of Dr. George Belden Crane

The Salvestrin family bought part of the historic Dr. Crane vineyard in 1932, shortly before the repeal of Prohibition. Their winery and tasting room are there, as Dr. Crane’s Victorian home, which the Salvestrin’s operate as a three-room inn. This wine from that site is 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc. It’s an excellent, classically St. Helena AVA Cabernet Sauvignon.

The color is dark ruby-purple and the nose offers plenty of briary black fruit, but also savory and dry herbal elements such as bay leaf, dried mint, and a hint of sun-dried tomato. The palate has medium-plus body with an excellent mouthfeel that’s a blend of creamy and fine-grained texture. Flavors are chewy black fruit and dried bay leaf enveloped in lovely, medium-dark chocolate mousse.

Copyright Fred Swan 2019. Photo of Cathy Corison courtesy of doug wilder | studio 1529. Other images courtesy of the respective wineries. All rights reserved.

About the author: Fred Swan is an Oakland-based writer, educator, and event sommelier. He’s written on wine and spirits for GuildSomm.com, Daily.SevenFifty.com, The Tasting Panel, SOMM Journal, PlanetGrape.com, and more. Fred teaches a wide range of classes at the San Francisco Wine School. He’s founder/producer of Wine Writers’ Educational Tours, an annual, educational conference for professional wine writers. He also leads seminars, private wine tours, and conducts tastings, dinners, and events for wineries, companies, and private parties. Fred’s certifications include WSET Diploma, Certified Sommelier, California Wine Appellation Specialist, Certified Specialist of Wine, French Wine Scholar, Italian Wine Professional, Napa Valley Wine Educator, Northwest Wine Appellation Specialist, and Level 3 WSET Educator. He’s three times been awarded a fellowship by the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers.