Intimate Remote Kuleto Cabs Tasting

Years ago we attended Taste of the Town in San Francisco with Bob and Carolyn. Out of the literally hundreds of wines to try there, Sue found a favorite in Kuleto's Cabernet Sauvignon, India Ink. Bob agreed she had found a good one. They both went back for a couple of retastes. Years later we visited their beautiful winery. We learned they had renamed India Ink to El Coyote. Given Sue's love of the wine, I would occasionally purchase some for her as gifts. This last time I went to acquire some, I thought it would be fun to put Sue to the test, blind taste all of the Kuleto Cabs I could find in the same vintage, seeing if she truly knew what her favorite was. Worse case scenario: She would find one she more preferred. You may have noticed, I like to think of ways to do more blind tastings.

I picked up all these 2016s

• El Coyote, Napa Valley
• Lone Acre, Napa Valley
• The Point, Napa Valley
• Villa Vista, Napa Valley

On a whim I pinged Paul to see if they were interested in doing it over the weekend. We had wanted to involve them in our Valentine's Day tasting, but the timing didn't work for them. Knowing how much Jennifer loves Cabs, I hoped we could find a time this tasting would work for both of us. Paul confirmed it would work.

Sue thought my zoom wine tasting attire, complete with my lucky Andrew Neeme sweatpants shorts, was funny. She said her only concession for remote tastings was that sometimes she wore slippers, instead of boots.

We're all on our way to being fully vaccinated, but we're not there yet. It was to be another remote tasting. We split the bottles and Paul picked them up. I failed to properly open A and shoved the cork into the bottle with spurts of wine all over the place. We're talking wine on the ceiling! We worked around this and I switched to the AH-so wine opener for the rest of the bottles. The corks were fine, but sometimes the bag makes it difficult to get our usual opener attached properly.

We had a great time tasting with Paul and Jennifer.

Results

D - 2016 Kuleto, El Coyote, Napa Valley, came in first place with an average of 4.18. It cost $100 from the winery.

C - 2016 Kuleto, The Point, Napa Valley, came in second place with an average of 4.06. It cost $100 from the winery.

A - 2016 Kuleto, Lone Acre, Napa Valley, came in third place with an average of 3.88. It cost $100 from the winery.

B - 2016 Kuleto, Villa Vista, Napa Valley, came in last place with an average of 3.55. It cost $100 from the winery.

The wine was all very good, lowest average 3.55, and Sue may have found a new favorite.