Getting two cases Cain Vineyard & Winery wine, certainly put this house on high alert, and we were almost giddy waiting for the actual moment of delivery.  From the first time that I had the wine, and then later when my Bride and I shared our first bottle, it has been on a hallowed mantel in our thoughts and cellar.  We have had other wines that are lauded by the press and other bloggers, but we keep going back to Cain, when we can find it, which is not often around here.  Maybe it doesn’t have the cachet, and to be truthful, that is fine with me, as it prevents the wine from becoming even dearer than it already is.  There was a pounding on the front door, and I left my spot in my office on the computer to run down to answer the door, I even went so far as to put on a mask, when I opened the door one case was already on the front porch and the driver was already bringing the second case to the porch.  I guess with everything going on, the protocol for signing for the wine has been on hold, maybe because when the driver looked at me, he was pretty sure that I was past the Age of Majority and was probably thinking that the wine was shipped overnight, because who knows how long I would be on this earth to enjoy drinking wine.  Any ways, I did not have to sign and by this time, my Bride had left her work station to open the screen door for me, as I carried the cases into the living room. 

I went to go get a razor knife and started opening up the packages, and they were the best packaged wine shipments we had ever received, and I would venture to say that we have had plenty of cartons arriving at our door.  It was also the first time we had wine sent to us overnight with ice packs enclosed, the Styrofoam bottle holders actually had special slots to hold the ice packs to keep the wine rather temperature regulated.  I thought back to the time that we visited Cain, and I had made reservations for us, right after we had booked our flight and the house that we were renting for the week, overlooking the entire valley.  Initially, there were only a couple of wineries that I made appointments for, while my Bride and Ms. Yoga had the job of booking a dinner reservation at The French Laundry.  There was a lot of logistics for this trip, trying to get everything lined up.  Those were great memories that we still carry around from that trip and Cain was definitely one of the highlights and one of the big hits watching my Bride tallying up all the wine while we were there after the tasting.  I will actually talk more of the winery in the next two installments, because as jaded as I can be, we were both pretty excited. 

The Cain Vineyard is located at the crest of Mayacamas Range that overlooks the Napa Valley and Saint Helena.  The four bottles of Cain Concept “The Benchland” 2007, from their library collection, is from vineyards lower down the mountain side going from Yountville to Oakville to Rutherford to St. Helena and all very special real estate of its own.  This wine is a blend of fifty-seven percent Cabernet Sauvignon, eighteen percent Merlot, thirteen percent Cabernet Franc and twelve percent Petit Verdot.  Cain Concept is handled by the winery the same way as they produce Cain Five (which is the mountain vineyard) and it takes a total of just over three years of production.  There are no notes, but I do know the wine is barreled as I have seen them stacked.  Now, I can look forward to having some of the Cain Concept 1996 as I am sure it is ready to be tried and there is three left of that wine.