Corison Winery, April 6th, 2012

Winery - 4 / Wines - 8
Range:  1 to 9 (9 is best, 5 is average)
Tatsing inside the warehouse.  Elegant Cabernet Sauvignon and other varietals (on different label).
www.corison.com

Like Provenance, I am a wine club member at Corison Winery.  I saw their wine in the store and wanted to try it before shelling out for the price, so I went to the winery to try it.  Needless to say, I was impressed.  After visiting Corison for four years and nearly missing out on some vintages, I decided to join the wine club.  Corison is so different from many other wineries.  Here, the emphasis is more on content, less on flash.  The same might be said for their wines, as they tend to be deliciously restrained expressions of elegance … in a bottle.

Corison Winery

As you make your way down the driveway to Corison Winery, located just south of St. Helena on the main road, you notice a very tidy winery operations building, which has been architected to mimic a barn.  As you walk through the large main doors, which act as the main doors to a barn, you walk into the winery operations warehouse, where the barrels are stacked up and stored for their long rest.  The first thing that strikes your nose upon entering is the wonderful smell of all that wine in barrel.  It’s a part of what keeps me coming back to Corison, besides the wine that is.  At the entrance is the tasting area, consisting of an informal counter set up for tasting and a cash register.  Across from the tasting counter is a small workstation with a computer, where the winemaker can sometimes be found at work.  Across the driveway from the main building is an eerie wooden tower that is in a state of slow decay.  I was told that a Hollywood producer visiting the winery offered to buy the tower and take back to Hollywood.  No deal.



The Corison tower

The Corison label produces two wines, both of which are Cabernet Sauvignon.  Their flagship wine, from the Kronos Vineyard, is made from the grapes grown on the Corison estate.  Their other wine, which is more widely distributed, is a blend of grapes from various locations throughout Napa Valley.  They also sell other wines under a different label.  The Helios label is used for a Cabernet Franc, a Merlot, and a Syrah, while the Corizon label produces a dry Gewürztraminer.  On the day I visited, they were pouring a vertical of their Napa Valley cabernets, including the 2005, 2006 and 2008 vintages, as well as the 2006 and 2007 Kronos.  All of the Cabernets produced by Kathy Corison are made in a very elegant, balanced, and age-worthy style, best appreciated after seven to fifteen years in the cellar.  My favorite for this visit was the 2005 Napa Valley Cabernet, but the 2007 Kronos was a close second.


Corison tasting counter

Based on this experience, I would rate the winery as a 4 and the wines offered as a 8.  This is consistent with all of my previous visits.