Fission 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon
The Alta Vista vineyard is the kind of place where everything feels immediately right. It’s this effortless natural balance that you notice even tasting berries in the fall. Cabernet Sauvignon doesn’t always taste good in the field. But it does here.
Fission is a pure mountain wine, with a dark depth of fruit chiseled by the cool elevation of its vineyard.
A wine of texture, with the intensity and sappy concentration we associate with old vines, it builds into powerful tannins that remain refined, almost cloaked by the seductiveness of the fruit and the gently building structure. The name Fission was ultimately chosen to reference the textural and mineral characteristics that the unique volcanic soils of the Alta Vista vineyard bring to this wine.
As you leave the town of Sonoma and head north into the hills of the Mayacamas mountain range that separates Sonoma from Napa, within a mile and a half you are on a narrow, rutted road at the bottom of a valley, sparsely populated, and then you start climbing, and find yourself almost entirely surrounded by forest, scrub and rock.
When you close the car door and turn to look up at Alta Vista, it’s like striding across a stage and looking up at the lights and rising rows of an audience. It feels like you are in an ancient Roman amphitheater, a player on stage, with the terraced row of vines looking down on you.
The vines at Alta Vista are fully adapted, they are truly part of the site, following the contours of the hill. They are old — fifty years old — which is exceptional by California standards. They come from a different era. And the site has so many expositions, and we believe either has some other varieties (Cabernet Franc) or because of age has Cabernet mutations that behave differently. We want to gently accentuate all these complexities, and the intense fruit and general plushness don’t need further enhancement. Preserving this complexity also leads to far greater aromatic intensity, and more precision in the structure as freshness is retained.
This winemaking is about as minimalist as it gets, and the end result is a wine with not only deep and pure fruit, but rich savory and earth tones, and a finishing minerality that is almost saline. That precise and complex aftertaste, defined by far more than fruit flavors, is where you find truly great wines.
The Vineyard Sources
Alta Vista Vineyard
Moon Mountain District Sonoma County
50 plus year old, dry farmed vines, on terraces fully adapted to their growing conditions.
Reviews
“Lovely fresh thyme, currant and lead pencil. Black berry. Black olive. Pine cone and pine needles. Bay leaf. Medium to full body, with round and firm tannins and not too dry. There is real freshness and depth here. Iron underneath."
- 95 Points, James Suckling
“The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Fission is a gorgeous wine from Mai Errazuriz and Rodrigo Soto. Ample and deep, the 2021 possesses tons of complexity from the very first taste. Brambly overtones meld into leather, cedar, tobacco and dried herbs. Brooding tannins wrap it all together. The Fission emerges from dry-farmed vines planted on St. George rootstock at Alta Vista Gold Ranch on Moon Mountain. The old-vine field selection is believed to include some Cabernet Franc."
- 94 Points, Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media
“An exemplary mountain Cabernet Sauvignon from the team at Far Mountain, this wine is sourced from the 50-year-old, dry-farmed vines at Alta Vista Vineyard in Sonoma's Moon Mountain District. The volcanic soils and gnarled head-trained vines make for a dramatic, elegant wine: Pine needles and bay leaf frame wild mountain berries and mineral tones of pencil lead and iron. The palate shows sappy tart blackberries, muddled mint leaves, and graphite streaks across the flavour profile, finishing with fresh chopped herbs and white pepper—a fresh, invigorating Cabernet from Sonoma showing so much respect for the site."
- 94 Points, Clive Pursehouse, Decanter