Former NFL Super Bowl Champion, All-Pro wide receiver and 1996 No. 1 draft pick Keyshawn Johnson has joined other former NFL stars including Drew Bledsoe and Terry Hoage in the winemaking business. The first release is the 2007 XIX Cabernet Sauvignon by Keyshawn Johnson from eastern Oregon portion of the Columbia Valley. Distribution began in September and the wine is priced at $125 a bottle, with about 65 cases made. Johnson has partnered on this project with R.C. Mills, a Los Angeles restaurant industry veteran.
The 2007 XIX was made of fruit sourced from the Echo West Vineyard and aged for 18 months in Hungarian Oak. The wine is opaque purple in color. The nose is rich and plush with aromas of warm blackberry cobbler. Currants, cassis, plums, spice box and blackberry liqueur on the palate. The wine is lush, silky and hedonistic. Fine grained tannins and an exquisite finish bode well for the future of this Cabernet. If you secure a few bottles for your cellar I suspect they will age effortlessly for at least a decade. A stunning first release. 94 points.
Tom, is that all your note from tasting the wine, or is all or some of that a marketing / media release from the winery? It really sounds like the latter.
I fully expect Wayne Chrebet to become a more consistent poster, one who posts on the little things, but makes a big impact on the board.
People will scratch their heads that while Key has a flashy, big money Cab, Chrebet will produce consistent lower priced bottles which deliver quietly, but yield big results.
Didn’t realize Hungarian Oak was used for anything but Tokaji but now I know better - but then again don’t drink much Oregon Cab - although I did drink an Oregon Syrah recently - that was made in Washington State!
Jack - the oak forests above Tokaj are the same species as the oak from forests in Allier except that it’s a lot colder in Tokaj so the grain is tighter. In the early 1990s because the price was so much less, a lot of people purchased Hungarian oak. Gallo alone purchased hundreds of barrels and people also bought it in places like Rioja. Today the price differential isn’t as great so there is less demand, but don’t forget, Tokaj is only one wine region in Hungary and part of what is today Romania and Austria used to be part of Hungary, so the oak is still used all over central Europe.
As far as Keyshawn goes - clearly the wine isn’t marketed to wine drinkers. It’s marketed to the same people who are going to pay a little extra to buy a perfume or a jacket or a hamburger grill because some celebrity attached a name to it’s almost incidental whether the wine is drinkable or not.