On the nose mocha, brown sugar, and dark chocolate wrap around a core of mountain blackberry. Cedar and cassis follow as secondary aromas. The palate is well balanced with berry flavors and spice. While displaying classic mountian concentration, fine grained tannins provide a smooth finish. Great ageing potential.
Reading about Donald Hess’s biography can make you wish you had lived his life yourself. He was born in Berne in 1936 and trained to become a master brewer in Munich. After his father’s premature death he took over the family-owned Steinhölzi Brewery in Berne even though he was only twenty yerars old. In 1961 he founded the Valser-Mineralquellen AG and turned the company into Switzerland’s number one producer of mineral water before selling it to Coca Cola. For several decades, Donald Hess has reinvested the proceeds from his business in the parallel cultivation of his two great passions: wine and art. Today the low-key Swiss citizen owns not just the Hess Collection Winery in the Napa Valley but some other estates as well, for example the Bodega Colomé whose wines are also available here. At all of his locations there is a public art collection in addition to a winery. The biggest one is the Hess Collection in California. Wine lovers will find the works of art created in the vineyards on Mount Veeder belonging to the Hess Collection even more interesting. They are situated on volcanic soil 600 metres above the bottom of the Napa Valley and are simply made for the production of fine wines with the cool breeze coming up from the nearby Pacific Ocean. The method of vinification of the Cabernets here is unique in the Napa Valley. It is done in open stainless steel fermentation tanks in which a pneumatic steel plate dips the grape mash into the fermenting must and keeps both softly moving. Consequently the wines have fewer tannins and more aroma. This proves how much the people at Hess’s are prepared to break fresh ground in order to accomplish the main goal of their boss: quality wine. The Hess Collection Winery is one of the prime names in the Napa Valley. The winery and the vineyards look back at 130 years of wine making history. They were elected the “Best US Wine Producer” at the international Wine & Spirit Competition in 2005. The Hess Collection wines rank among the top five wines served by the glass in American bars and restaurants.
