Drinking the 2004 Clearwater Creek Cabernet Sauvignon
Clearwater Creek is fictitious. There is no Clearwater Creek winery.
Having said that, Clearwater Creek as a concept is very real. North Berkeley Imports (NBI) is a small storefront wine shop in Berkeley, California. NBI has its own label, “Clearwater Creek,” under which they bottle wines culled from the barrels of well-known American wineries. I think. It’s a bit hard to tell when you look at their Web site because the focus is on their importation of French and Italian wines.
Anyway, the concept of Clearwater Creek is terrific: If you are a famous Napa or Sonoma winemaker and you cannot bottle and sell all of your grapes yourself, you can sell those extra grapes to NBI who turns them into the next Clearwater Creek release. Simple! And very cost-effective for the consumer. I like it. I also assume that’s how it works. I don’t know for sure.
Flashback time: In April 2007 I was at the LA Wine Co. store in Palm Desert, California. The good people there told me about a really nice Cabernet Sauvignon for $12.95 per bottle from an unknown label. They also hinted at the provenance of the wine inside the bottle with the unknown label. I am sworn to secrecy, but if you search CellarTracker for this wine you can quickly see where the juice itself came from. The NBI Web site mentions an Alexander Valley source, which of course matches the user comments at CellarTracker. I purchased 6 bottles from LA Wine Co. and at this point I wish I had purchased 6 cases.
You see, this wine is good. Damn good. Really damn good. You drink it and you think, “Wow, this wine is really damn good!” And then you remember you paid $12.95 for it instead of, say, $60. It is at this point that you really begin to like the Clearwater Creek label as a concept.
I decided to open a bottle despite the youth of this wine (it’s a 2004 after all, and this is still 2007); this was a good move on my part. My wife and I had a friend over from The Netherlands who would normally join me in some wine, but she is pregnant so all of the wine consumption was up to me. Here are my thoughts:
- Aroma: Initially potent blueberry and black fruit aromas with velvety backdrop; opened up after 30-45 minutes into a wonderfully complex bouquet of oak and cedar, vanilla, cherry, blackberry, leather, and smoke. Exceptional aromatic balance for a young Cabernet.
- Flavor: Solid fresh blackberry and luscious raspberry straight away, with smoky, tannic mid-palate and lengthy, velvety aftertaste; fairly complex flavor profile that kept changing as the wine sat in my glass.
- General impression: Delicious, well-balanced (I would say “poised”) combination of rich fruit, smooth tannins, vigorous but controlled acidity…very nice indeed.
This wine was a dynamite bargain, a true steal in fact. Except I didn’t steal it, I paid for it! So I guess it isn’t a true steal. More of a proverbial steal. Never mind. It’s awesome. The only trick is there appears to be a Sonoma Cabernet and an Alexander Valley Cabernet from the 2004 Clearwater Creek stable. Finding the Alexander Valley release seems almost impossible at this point; LA Wine Co. sold out of their small allotment as fast as they could tell people about the wine. Perhaps the thing to do is keep an eye on NBI and Clearwater Creek for future developments. If this wine is any indication, NBI is doing everything right.