Row Eleven Wines is owned by long time winemaker and industry veteran Richard de los Reyes and includes several labels within its portfolio including Row Eleven Wines, Stratton Lumis, Civelo and The Magician. During his career, Richard has worked at a number of wineries in California and abroad providing a variety of services ranging from winemaker, vineyard manager, to being in charge of securing high end vineyard sources. Stratton Lummis is one of his four labels and is the only one that focuses on fruit grown entirely in Napa. Row Eleven wines focus on high quality Pinot Noir grapes from select vineyard sources throughout California and Civello is a very unique white wine blend. With such a long history of making wine for others, its only natural that at some point you will start making your own commercial wine. Of course, working with industry greats such as the late Justin Meyer of Silver Oak doesn’t hurt. Justin was one of Richard’s biggest influences especially in regards to branding; focus your efforts on typically one variety per brand and do not compromise on quality. The first Stratton Lummis release was a 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon.
Richard has been making wine since 1975. As he says, the great wine estate vineyards are already under ownership so it doesn’t make financial sense to actually purchase the vineyards. However because of his long history in the industry he has built solid relationships with some of these estates and today can selectively pick fruit from some of the highest quality vineyards in Napa. Not divulging the fruit sources, not owning the property and making the wine on or near the site of the estate winery allows Stratton Lummis to offer one of the best price to quality ratio’s in the Napa Valley. The name of the winery pays tribute to two of Richard’s grandfathers by combining their names.
Stratton Lummis holds nothing back when it comes to unveiling their Chardonnay in its purest form. Their focus is to entirely show the varietal characteristics, not the winemakers style, and certainly not the oak’s style! “Un-oaked” is even written on the back of the label. Richard is a California winemaker using California fruit in the tradition of the old world style. Like their other wines, it is meant to be consumed with food. The 2006 uses all Dijon clones grown in the Carneros appellation and see 100% malolactic fermentation. It shows a light straw color in the glass with a bouquet that has nice pear and citrus aromas including tangerine and lime. The palate reveals very concentrated fruit flavors with a rounded mouth feel that leads to a long refreshing finish. This is a wine that begs to be paired with fish or spicy foods.
We tried both the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon and as of press time, the not yet released 2005 vintage. 2004 and 2005 produced different growing seasons; 2004 was warmer than 05′ and in part it is interesting to note the vintage differences in the wines. Each wine is blended with small varying amounts of Petit Verdot. The 2004 with more time in the bottle and being a warmer year shows elegant delicious fruit both in the bouquet and on the palate. Coming in at 14.2% alcohol this wine is also not going to overwhelm your palate if you drink it by itself. The aromas are filled with a core of dark fruit as well as cassis and subtle notes of chocolate. The mouth feel is rich and rounded with a finish that has just the right amount of tannin structure to drink this either alone or certainly with food. The finish is slightly spicy and lingers for great length with the fruit showing its depth one last time. The 2005 is a slightly bigger wine that in our opinion will benefit from aging. It is a well concentrated wine rich in color. Blackberry and fruit aromas continue as flavor into the juicy palate. This is a powerful wine with firm well structured tannins and a finish of great length that leaves you only wanting more!
For Cabernet with this type of complexity (and we are referring to both vintages) you are going to be extremely hard pressed to find anything of similar quality from Napa and certainly not at this excellent price! And consider the vineyard sources; the grapes come from some of the better known vineyards in Napa’s top valley floor Cabernet Sauvignon appellations, Oakville and Rutherford. You can be sure those wineries are selling their estate wines more for the “typical” Oakville and Rutherford high end Cabernet prices. It is fun to let both of these Cabernet’s open up in the glass over time as they change and pick up additional nuances both in aroma and flavor.
There is an interesting story which accompanies the original labels for the Stratton Lummis Artists’ Series. Richard originally went to college to study art and painting and during his initial studies he earned less than desirable scores for his paintings. As a result his art career came to an abrupt end and during his time off from school he was introduced to a winemaker at Korbel Winery who encouraged him to pursue a career in the wine industry. Taking his recommendation to heart he completely changed career paths and graduated from CSU Fresno’s Enology program.
However, Richard never destroyed those original paintings and in later years they served him well by being the artwork for his inaugural labels. The Artists’ Series continues each year with the labels representing works of art by reputable California artists. Distribution is mostly to high end restaurants with a focus on resort towns. You can sometimes find the wine locally in Napa at Redd Restaurant in Yountville and of course online.
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