October 13, 2014 – Wine: 2005 Ramey Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (750ml + 375ml)

Last month, during my travels in Seattle, a dear friend who moved there invited my mom and me to dinner.  My friend would be cooking salmon, and he gave me the task of bringing the wine (which I gladly accepted).  (Later it would turn out that I would be grilling the fish, too, but that is my pleasure.)  I know that the fashionable pairing with fish is a white wine, and Salmon would have demanded a full bodied Chardonnay with higher acids.  But my favorite wine to pair with salmon is Napa Valley Cabernet.  Of course, my friend’s first comment was that I, a typical Californian, had so predictably picked a Napa Valley Cabernet over all the terrific wines made in Washington.  But this was a 2005 Ramey that I had tasted when younger, so I confidently ignored my friend's comment and simply popped the cork.   That shut my friend up, who ended up fighting with my mom and me over the last few ounces in the bottle.  The wine went perfectly with the gorgeous fillet of salmon I was grilling up too.  The wine was still plush like a younger 2005, with all of its fruit intact, but with ideal balance and showing some of the best red fruits that 2005 had to offer.  I had to reveal the store where I purchased the wine so my friend could pick up another bottle.

The big bottle of 2005 Ramey Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Of course, that Seattle bottle got me thinking about the 375ml bottle of the same wine that I had slumbering in my basement (for six years now).  So, I relented and popped the cork tonight on this bottle.  The similarities between the two wines were not surprising, but the subtle differences were remarkable.  Whereas the 750ml bottle featured a palette of beautiful red fruits, including cranberry, currants, blackberry, as well as subtle minerals and leather, the 375ml was actually more complex.  In the half-bottle, I noticed much of the same flavors, but also noted more prominent black fruit flavors which were more subtle in the 750ml bottle.  Usually, I prefer the performance of the half-bottle to the full-bottle of the same wine because it has developed more character, but this time I was enamored with the lush red fruits of the larger bottle.