Ad Vivum Cellars - Sleeping Lady Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

Druva

100% Cabernet Sauvignon (55% Clone 191, 45% Clone 7)

Tasting note

Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Sleeping Lady Vineyard is deep garnet-purple in color. It leaps from the glass with blackcurrant jelly, warm plums and mulberries notes plus suggestions of black raspberries, roses, tar, anise and fragrant earth. Full-bodied, the palate is very tight-knit, with firm, ripe, grainy tannins and lively acidity supporting the layers upon layers of nuances, finishing very long and wonderfully minerally. 480 cases were made.

Chris Phelps has been the winemaker at Ad Vivum for 12 years. This is a small production label of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon (55% Clone 191, 45% Clone 7) coming from just six rows of vines from the Sleeping Lady vineyard in the Yountville AVA south of Dominus.

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Robert Parker Wine Advocate

Technical sheet

Composition:
100% Cabernet Sauvignon (67% Clone 191, 33% Clone 7)

Single-Vineyard:
Ad Vivum Cabernet Sauvignon is grown in two small blocks at Sleeping Lady Vineyard, in Yountville, Napa Valley. Sleeping Lady, the southernmost vineyard in the Yountville AVA, is in a location that enjoys ample cooling from nearby San Pablo Bay, which promotes gradual ripening. These blocks are found at the vineyard’s uppermost western perimeter along the Mayacamas Mountains, with rows oriented southwest-northeast. The vineyard is sustainably and meticulously farmed by the Bettinelli family. 

Soil:
The soil profile shows Keefers dark gravelly-sandy clay loam of alluvial origin.

Growing Season & Harvest:
The 2018 vintage for the Ad Vivum blocks at Sleeping Lady showed slightly above-average yields with excellent quality, the result of well-timed rainfall in March and April. Budbreak was a bit late, water stress was virtually non-existent, and warm, even temperatures allowed for a leisurely pace for harvest. Peak phenolic ripeness was reached for Ad Vivum fruit, dictating harvest for both clones on October 17th. The wine developed an alluring tension and great depth in barrel, and continues to become increasingly complex in bottle.

Winemaking:
The berries were gently de-stemmed, and then sorted both optically and by hand. The must was cool-soaked for 48 hours prior to fermentation in 75% stainless and 25% new French oak barrels. Total maceration time was 23 days. Drained warm into 75% new French oak barrels for 20 months of aging, 475 cases were bottled on June 30, 2020.