Founded way back in 1889 by a pickle magnate called John Henry Fisher, the original property was planted to the vine and a winery was built so that barrels of the estate wine could be produced and sold in San Francisco. Thanks to the earthquake of 1906, Fisher went out of business and was forced to sell the estate, following which it fell into disrepair until the end of prohibition. By 1941 it had been purchased by an Englishman called Jack Taylor, who re-christened it Mayacamas (after the Native American word for the property) and embarked on a replanting program. When Bob Travers took over in 1968, Mayacamas was already well respected locally, but Bob – who had trained at Heitz Cellars and was a protégé of Andre Tchelistcheff – saw there was potential to make world-class wine there. From his very first vintage, Bob fulfilled this promise, and by the time of the 1976 tasting in Paris (which included the ’71 Cabernet), Mayacamas was regarded as one of California’s great wineries.
94+ Points John Gilman
Mayacamas has had a program of re-releasing their Cabernets after ten years and this has continued under the new ownership. Therefore, the 2003 vintage made by Bob Travers is just coming back into the market again, and it is a stellar bottle. This is a classic Mayacamas Cabernet in what was not a great vintage, but is certainly a great wine. The bouquet is blossoming and is flat out stunning, offering up a complex blend of cassis, dark berries, cigar ash, a nice touch of bell pepper, great soil tones, smoky tones and a nice touch of incipient chipotle in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and rock solid at the core, with moderate tannins, great focus and grip and a very, very long and perfectly balanced finish. This was probably a riper vintage than Bob Travers traditionally liked, as it is listed at 13.75 percent and this seems quite accurate, but Bob generally preferred his cabernets right around thirteen percent even. In any event, the wine is aging beautifully and is a classic Mayacamas.