About the Producer:
One of the ultimate challenges for any self-respecting wine merchant is to find a great quality Californian wine producer whose prices are not extortionate. The best Napa Valley wines, similar to the best Swiss examples, have a thirsty and patriotic domestic audience who seem prepared to pay almost any price for their own native wines. For many years this quest has proven a bridge too far, but this year we have finally struck gold!
World’s End is a new venture based on prized west-facing slopes in the heart of Napa Valley. It is owned and managed by Jonathan Maltus, a Northern Englishman who has become quite a celebrity in Bordeaux where his cult “garagiste” winery Le Dome fetches breathtakingly high prices. This is his first vintage of production of the World’s End range of wines and we are excited to be in right from the start. Neil Whyte, his modest but talented Scottish (!) winemaker, blends his experience in creating Le Dome and other top Bordeaux wines from the Maltus stable with the exceptional fruit quality the best Napa slopes can deliver. The result is a delicious wine style which is French in its elegance and finesse yet Californian in its rich fruit and silky tannins.
Key drivers of this style according to Whyte are picking the grapes at perfect ripeness, a very slow, cool extraction of fruit and tannins from the skins, with the grapes left for a week longer than the norm on their skins after fermentation finishes, and a 15 month maturation in 100% French oak barrels.
There are for now only 3 wines in the World’s End range, a Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and a Merlot, all red, but with some white varietals in the pipeline for the future. We hope you are as enthused by these wines as we are!
(a 50/50 blend of syrah and cabernet franc from a cool site): Good full medium ruby. Very reticent nose hints at blueberry, kirsch, licorice and violet, plus a whiff of smoked meat. Dense but pliant, even if the black fruit flavors are a bit youthfully stunted. Very ripe and broad but the tannins are a bit dusty and dry. Today this doesn't yet come alive, but it would appear to have all the elements to make a very good bottle.- Stephen Tanzer 90 Points
Overall Customer Rating of 1 Reviews: