2009 Cain Vineyard and Winery "Cain Five", Napa Valley, California, USA

ABOUT THIS WINE

If the Cain Five is utterly unique, distinctive in both aroma and taste, this can only reflect the Cain Vineyard, which gives birth to this wine and is both spectacular and idiosyncratic. Composed of the five classic varieties —Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot—Cain Five epitomizes the benefits of blending to achieve a complex wine.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

The success of Cain depends on the combination of an incredible site, an inspired vision, patient, persevering, and tenacious ownership, and the unending hard work of the Cain team. Take any of these key elements away, and you would not be reading this—nor would we even be writing it.

Each year, our work on Spring Mountain is marked by a few almost sacred moments in both the vineyard and the cellar: the beginning of pruning, the end of pruning, budbreak, flowering, veraison, bottling, the arrival of harvest interns, the beginning of harvest, the making of the wine, the end of harvest. Some of these events we acknowledge with ceremony, others we quietly observe.

What follows are our thoughts and observations, our questions and curiosity about this endlessly fascinating alchemy and its history that begins in the vineyard and results in the beautiful, complex, nuanced, refined glass of wine in your hand.