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Brian Pasch Expert Wine Reviews

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2003 Scarecrow Cabernet

I hate to say "I told you so" but this is the 3rd or 4th wine this year that I called months in advance of any great wine scores. Great wine scores meaning 96+ point wines that have been under the radar screen. Let me say that people who love quality red wines should send me an e-mail to:  brian@brianpasch.com and request to be added to my free newsletter. Get the inside scoop for free.

In June of 2006 I wrote about this winery and urged readers to get on their mailing list and order wines. The first writing on Scarecrow Winery was written on June 24, 2006. Read the inaugural article on the 2003 Scarecrow Cabernet.

When the wine arrived this Fall , I tasted the 2003 Scarecrow Cabernet and confirmed to my readers that this was a legendary wine. Read the wine review of the 2003 Scarecrow Cabernet as I wrote in October 2006. At this point I was urging readers to purchase three or six bottles of this wine. I even submitted articles on Scarecrow that rated the 2003 Cabernet 99/100 points.

Its funny that months before the Robert Parker scores I rated the wine 99 points; Parker came in with a score of 98 points. Tonight I re-tasted the 2003 Scarecrow Cabernet and it was delicious. Wine Collectors: get some of this wine in your collections. You will NOT be disappointed.

Here is a summary from Scarecrow Winery website about this project:

The Scarecrow story begins in a patch of earth with a fabled past. The J.J. Cohn Estate, where Scarecrow grapes are born, borders what was once the legendary vineyard of Inglenook winemaker Gustavo Niebaum, whose plantings blanketed more than 1,000 acres of the Napa Valley at the close of the 19th century.

John Daniel Jr. took the helm at Inglenook in 1939, determined to restore the label to pre-Prohibition standing and produce world-class Bordeaux-style wines. In 1945, Daniel convinced his neighbor, J.J. Cohn, to plant eighty acres of Cabernet vines on the 180-acre parcel Cohn had purchased a few years prior. The property served as a summer retreat for Cohn’s wife and their family. He had no ambitions to become a winemaker himself, but Daniel promised to buy his grapes, so Cohn planted vines.

The rest, as they say, is history. J.J. Cohn fruit figured prominently in Inglenook’s superlative Cabernet Sauvignons of the post-war era, and has more recently gone into wines of such renown as Opus One, Niebaum-Coppola, Duckhorn, Insignia and Etude. J.J. Cohn Estate grapes are highly sought-after in part because Cohn bucked the trend, begun in the mid- 1960s, of replacing vines planted on St. George rootstock with the supposedly superior AxR#I hybrid.

Over time, vines grafted onto this new stock proved highly vulnerable to phylloxera. But by then, virtually all of the old St. George vines in Napa had been destroyed. Only the original 1945 J.J. Cohn vines survived. These highly prized “Old Men” continue to produce uncommonly rich fruit—the hallmark of Scarecrow wine. But the Scarecrow story doesn’t end there. This is more than a tale of enchanted ground and the exceptional wine that flows out of it.

The Scarecrow story is a story, too, of an extraordinary family legacy. Joseph Judson Cohn was born in Harlem in 1895 to Russian immigrants. Cohn spent his childhood in dire poverty and never learned to prefer the taste of fresh bread over stale—even after he’d found great success in Hollywood. A move west in the 1920s launched Cohn’s studio career. Highly resourceful and extremely capable, Cohn began as a bookkeeper, distinguished himself early and rose quickly through the ranks to become Chief of Production at MGM. His unofficial credo, “Nothing is impossible,” became the motto of his MGM staff.

They knew him as a man who simply refused to take “No” for an answer. During Hollywood’s golden age, Cohn was instrumental in the making of such film classics as Ben Hur, Gigi, Mutiny on the Bounty and, most beloved of all, The Wizard of Oz. Today, the Scarecrow label pays tribute to the endearing and indomitable character from that film. Scarecrow evokes a distinctly American agricultural icon and American optimism. And most importantly, Scarecrow honors the remarkable life of J.J. Cohn. Cohn lived to be 100 years old, spanning a defining century that he helped to shape. The people who labor with passion and conviction to bring you Scarecrow wine are proud to be part of his living legacy.

Brian Pasch - December 23, 2006

www.scarecrowwine.com
info@scarecrowwine.com

707-963-3361
707-968-9367 (fax)