I Drank A 1989 Iron Horse T Bar T Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon And I Liked It!

When you look to any expert source about the 1989 vintage in Northern California they all say it was a less than stellar year because the rains came during harvest. Most experts also say that unless you are talking about a few exceptional mountain vineyards a 23 year old Cabernet Sauvignon from California is going to have oxidized, turned brown, fallen apart, and generally is going to taste like poo so don't bother to pull the cork. Well I say "poo to that"! I had a magnum of 1989 Iron Horse T-bar-T Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon last night and it was killer.

The vast majority of the wine produced in the world is intended to be consumed as soon as it is bottled or boxed as the case may be (6 month to a year after the vintage). I'm talking about 99%. Yes, most wine is meant to be drunk while it's young, fresh and fruity. The American palate loves fruit forward wines. Only a few wines are going to benefit from aging. Cabernet is one of them. Jancis Robinson has written an in depth article about aging wines. The gist of the article is an idea I have embraced for a long time, it is a greater crime to drink wine too old than to drink it too young. As all my friends and acquaintances will tell you, I have never had a problem pulling a cork.

Then why do I have a bottle of 1989 Cabernet sitting around in 2012, a good 13 years after I should have pulled the cork and enjoyed it with friends? Yes, wine should be enjoyed with other people. You can drink a single malt scotch by yourself but wine is meant to be a shared thing. Well, it is a large bottle (1.5 L) and they age slower than a 750ml.... Okay, okay I lost it! I put it on the bottom shelf of my wine closet and it has been hidden away for a few years. I'm human. I made a mistake. So shoot me. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has ever done this.

I found it by accident a few days ago and thought it would be a good mystery wine for a group of wine aficionados at a local wine shop where I hang out. They would never guess this was a 23 year old California Cabernet. So I pulled it out and set it upright so the vast amount of sediment I knew had to be there could drop to the bottom of the bottle.   

Well, it never made it to the wine shop. I had a family dinner at my house and during the dinner my aforementioned tendency to "have no problem pulling a cork" struck. I opened it and poured a glass. It was ruby red in color. There was no brown tinge around the edge like I had envisioned. It was clear not cloudy. It smelled of plums and cherries not raisins as I expected. It tasted of ripe fruit, acid and soft tannin in balance. There was the soft velvety mouth feel of a mature wine. (Yes, I have this problem with the cork but I have been lucky enough in my life to have tasted some great older wines. That's what friends are for.) The components of the wine were combined so that they were greater than the sum of their parts. It was like the flavor you get from a stew or chili after it sits for a couple days. The last two glasses contained just a little bit of fine sediment, but not enough for us to not drink them. The wine was absolutely 'killer'. I have no higher praise word than 'killer'. 

Forrest Tancer

I have a history with Iron Horse Vineyards and it goes back to 1987 when I was the chef of the Greenhouse in Captiva Florida. Hans Boortman, one of our wine reps walked in one day with Mr. Forrest Tancer the winemaker at Iron Horse Vineyards in Green Valley, Sonoma, California. We tasted through the wines and I bought a case of the Sparkling Brut. It was the wine Reagan used to toast Gorbachev at the summit in Geneva that ended the "Cold War" in 1985. Our list at the time was exclusively American wines and this was the best American sparkling wine I had ever tasted. They left but then came back around 9:00 that night and had dinner. After they finished, I sat down and talked with Forrest. Yes, we drank a few more bottles of wine too. Forrest is one of those really nice, "easy to talk to" people and he was very passionate about Iron Horse and their wines.

Back then, we closed the restaurant at the end of June and didn't re-open until the first of October. Every year my first wife, Sherill and I spent part of the time-off in Northern California visiting wineries, restaurants and produce growers. We bought a lot of specialty items from Wine Country Cuisine, a specialty produce company located in Santa Rosa. Forrest invited us to come visit Iron Horse Vineyards and be his guest at a "Harvest Lunch". Of course we accepted. 

At Iron Horse Vineyards we met Mr. Barry Sterling, his wife Audrey, their son Laurence and their daughter Joy. The Sterling family and Forrest are the owners of Iron Horse and I would be hard pressed to tell you which one is the more gracious hospitable person. They are nice people and they want you to feel at home at Iron Horse, so they treat you like family. You can get their whole story and information on their current releases here. The one thing you will not get from that website is the passion these people have about Iron Horse Vineyards. You have to do that face to face, so if you get the opportunity please visit them at the winery or try to catch Joy at one of the many wine tastings and dinners she does all over the country. Or you can open a bottle of their wine. Only a passionate person could have made that wine.

Harvest Lunch at Iron Horse Vineyards

The "Harvest Lunch" was quite unique. It was multi-course but only one meat, confit of duck. The rest was composed of vegetables and fruits from the gardens below the main house, their gardens. The group was unusual as well. There was a Senator, a official from the FDA, two up and coming chefs from southern California, a restaurateur from Chicago, a writer from Gourmet Magazine, two wine aficionados from New York and a young couple who had just stopped by the winery to get information and taste the wines. Everyone is welcome at Iron Horse Vineyards.

Over the years, I have always had at least one of their wines on my restaurant's wine list. Over the years, I got divorced and ended up in Atlanta selling wine for Empire Distributors. One of the wineries I represented was Iron Horse Vineyards. I had good success getting restaurants to put these wines on their list. It's easy to sell something you believe in and I had the story, the Iron Horse Vineyards story.

Over the years, Joy and Forrest got married. Their wedding was the inspiration for the Wedding Cuvee and was the first wedding where it was served. Over the years Joy and Forrest got divorced. It happens, even to nice people.

Sally and I were in Northern California in early September of 1991 or 1992 (I'm old, my memory is not what it used to be). Joy invited us to "Harvest Lunch" and it was just as fantastic as the first one I attended. They even let us stay a couple days in their "Pool House Accommodations", a building between the Sterling's home and the winery. It was quite nice and well stocked with wine. Sally and Mr. Sterling got along great, they are both green thumbs. Joy invited us into her home for a dinner she had for some of her friends. She went out of her way to make us feel her home was our home.  

When I got out of the wine business and opened Crazy Conch Cafe with Sally, the first wine we put on our list was Iron Horse Sparkling Brut.

Over the years, Iron Horse started to focus on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and their Sparkling Wines. Forest has retired and Iron Horse no longer makes wines from his T-bar-T vineyard.

When I found this magnum, I tried to find out about it's history and get a tech sheet with the tasting notes. Because Forrest is retired, I had no luck tracking him down. I'm sad about that because I would like for him to know how good his wine is even after 23 years. I sent a note to Iron Horse Vineyards in hope that they might still have a tech sheet. Joy immediately sent me a reply that she was on the road but would be at home over the weekend and would let me know if she could find one. This is her reply:

Joy Sterling

Dear Michael,

I am so sorry, but I am afraid I could not find the Tech Sheet on file. I can tell you a bit about the vineyard. The grapes came from the T-bar-T Vineyard in the northeast corner of the Alexander Valley, which belonged to the Iron Horse founding winemaker Forrest Tancer. Forrest sold the vineyard in 2002. It now belongs to Kathryn Hall. The property sits in the foothills rising to an elevation of 800 feet. It is very steep and rugged, with great outcroppings of serpentine – California’s state rock. Out of 475 acres, only 60 acres at the time were planted to vine. True to the Alexander Valley, T-bar-T always gave us luscious fruit with soft, melting tannins. The wines aged remarkably well, thanks to a beautiful acid balance. I sincerely hope this turns out to be a wonderful "lost treasure".

With all my best,

Joy

Like I said, nice people.

The next time you are in Sonoma head north out of Sebastopol on Route 116 West following the signs to Jenner. After about 5.5 miles take a left onto Ross Station Road and follow it all the way to the very end and you will be in the heart of Green Valley.  Relax and have a little wine. You will realize as I have that the real treasure of Iron Horse Vineyards will never be lost, it's the people.

Iron Horse Ranch and Vineyard, 9786 Ross Station Road, Sebastopol, CA 95472 Tel. - 707.887.1507 Tours by appointment Monday - Friday at 10:00 a.m. Sales room open daily from 10:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.