2011 Old Sparky


Our 2011 Beckstoffer To Kalon Old Sparky 1.5L will be shipped in a Schrader Cellars wooden box.

Blended from the finest barrel lots of the vintage, 2011 Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Old Sparky offers prodigious richness, power and complexity. The wine opens with a magnificent and enveloping wave of ultra-ripe red and black fruit essence that expands to reveal the wine’s vast briar-berry core. Accents of tobacco leaf, pain grillé and alluring spring flowers run through the profile and beautifully complement the stunning fruit essence. Supremely concentrated, the exceptional balance and well-toned tannins roll out like velvet across the palate and complete this benchmark wine.

  • Vintage 2011
  • Alcohol 14.4%
  • Vineyard Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard
  • Appellation Oakville, Napa Valley
  • Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Clone Clones 4, 6, and 337
  • Cooperage Aged 20 months in rare Darnajou French oak barrels
  • Winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown
  • Tasting Notes

    Blended from the finest barrel lots of the vintage, this monumental wine offers prodigious richness, power and complexity. The wine opens with a magnificent and enveloping wave of ultra-ripe red and black fruit essence that expands to reveal the wine’s vast briar-berry core. Accents of tobacco leaf, pain grillé and alluring spring flowers run through the profile and beautifully complement the stunning fruit essence. Supremely concentrated, the exceptional balance and well-toned tannins roll out like velvet across the palate and complete this benchmark wine.

  • Accolades

    95 Pts. “The 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Old Sparky reveals lots of cassis, spring flower, graphite and spice characteristics along with good minerality. Medium to full-bodied and strikingly rich, it, too, is a great success for the vintage. It should drink well for 15 or more years.”
    — Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate

  • Vineyard

    First planted in 1868 by viticultural and winemaking icon Hamilton Crabb, To Kalon Vineyard® has long been regarded as the source of Napa Valley’s finest Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Within the prime vineyard blocks, an alluvial fan provides excellent and varied mineral deposits, and the rich soils are filled with marine sediment that gives our wines their distinctive profiles. The vines receive full sun and optimal heat during the day and are cooled by marine fog at night. These conditions allow the Cabernet Sauvignon planted in the vineyard to display its own unique character, and this celebration of individuality is the essence of Schrader ®.

  • Vintage

    The 2011 vintage was the most challenging harvest we have ever experienced in Napa Valley. In short, the vintage separated producers based on their attention to detail in the vineyard and experience, where timely decision-making became integral to the outcome of the harvest. Extreme reductions in the vineyard were followed by single berry sorting at the winery. In the end, we harvested a very small yet remarkably high quality crop. We are thrilled, though not at all surprised, that winemaker Thomas Brown brilliantly navigated Mother Nature’s gauntlet to produce an exquisite portfolio of wines.