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Ruby Cabernet: Roll with the Rockstars/Still Never Get Accepted As
and his Chicago Bulls upset Magic Johnson (still not diagnosed as HIV-positive yet) and the Los Angeles Lakers to win their first NBA championship; and a moderately popular heavy metal act named Anthrax releases an album of b-sides and covers called “Attack of the Killer B’s” that includes a cover of Public Enemy’s seminal 1987 rap track, “Bring the Noise.”
Lexington and Concord? Fort Sumter? Not quite. After all, a trio of former hardcore punks from Brooklyn had recorded an album called License to Ill in 1986 that could be called the first real rap-rock shot across the establishment’s bow, or you could even argue that Blondie’s “Rapture” was the first-ever rap-rock smash (or if you’re really old, Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”). But a memorable moment nonetheless, because when Public Enemy front man Chuck D got on board with the idea, re-recorded the song as a chart-topping co-production with Anthrax, and then toured with them, you could say that the merger of real rock and real rap into one fully cohesive unit had finally given birth to its first, full-fledged mega-success story.
Music journalists the world over breathlessly drooled all over themselves at this sumptuous new combination and began to produce reams upon reams of high-praise regalia exalting this “next big thing” and that the merger of the two was was always an inevitability and we’d all born witness to a seminal event that would change not only music but the world forever.
Yeah, not so fast. Like the binding of any two disparate entities, there were some initial successes. Perry Farrell’s Lollapalooza music festival, which launched in 1991, brought hip-hop acts like Ice Cube, A Tribe Called Quest, and Arrested Development to the attention of alt-rock hungry fans and melded seemingly disparate audiences together (though it also gave a touring outlet to Ice-T’s risible Body Count hardcore rap-metal side project). Despite being attached to a terrible movie starring Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Jeremy Piven, the 1993 Music from the Motion Picture Judgment Night release, an all rap-rock collaboration between some of both genre’s most popular acts at the time (including Helmet and House of Pain, Pearl Jam and Cypress Hill, Mudhoney and Sir Mix-a-lot, and Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.) was adored by critics and peaked at #17 on the Billboard Hot 200. And Rage Against the Machine exploded onto the scene to bring their politically-conscious rap-rock to the masses and become one of the biggest bands on the planet.
But ultimately, this new form could not sustain itself, primarily because a true new, unique identity independent from its previous progenitors could not be forged for this new style . Instead, quality began to slip as the product got over-saturated and less-skilled hands tried their own fumbling attempts to recreate the alchemy, hip-hop–with a culture all to its own–and rock–with its own distinct culture–could not find a common ground, and each began to liberally use elements from the other to drive their own genre into unique and previously undiscovered areas. Rap-rock simply could not sustain itself, despite the efforts of a few (Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit) to keep it alive, and the genre ultimately collapsed upon itself and was never ever self-sustaining again.
Fortunately, this week’s Forgotten Grape Ruby Cabernet did not suffer the same fate, though it also sadly never scaled the same heights as rap-rock did. Instead, Ruby Cabernet was created to try to utilize two of the best components of two separate grapes: namely, the complex aromas, flavors, and quality of Cabernet Sauvignon, and the deeper color, drought and disease resistance, and hot-weather productivity of the Carignane grape from the Rhone. However, because of the relative difficulty of hybridizing grapes (for every successful grape hybrid, there are literally thousands of failed attempts at cross-breeding different varietals), not much was expected of this combination. The fact that Ruby Cabernet even exists at all is a tribute to its own success.
But unfortunately, Ruby Cabernet did not exactly hit all of the sweet spots and transfer over only the most desired traits of its parents. The grape produced by cross-breeding Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan did retain the heat and drought resistance of the latter grape, but it has also been found to do well and actually produce the best wines in cooler environments. Ruby Cabernet certainly got the deep dark red and violet color of both parents, but it also inherited the heavy tannins of both grapes, which makes difficult to work with on its own and even more difficult to balance with its alcohol and acidity to create fine wines. Also, Ruby Cabernet developed into a rather vigorous grape that will produce lots of fruit per vine; some of this has to do with its engineered resistance to disease and rot (one of the purposes of the hybridization) and the fact that the grapes grow in smaller, tighter bunches that make them more resistant to wind sheer and heavy gusts. All of this means that a Ruby Cabernet vine produces a lot of fruit, which is not necessarily a good thing if you want to produce fine, nuanced, and complex wines, as you want fewer grape bunches to get all the water, nutrients and attention from the vine. Because of this, Ruby Cabernet is most often produced into cheap bulk
red wines or else added to other bulk red wines (particularly its parent Cabernet) to give those wines more color and a stronger, thicker tannic backbone (particularly if those wines have noticeably higher alcohol or acid levels and need to be balanced out).
But, as is almost always the case, there are a few rebel winemakers out there willing to buck the system, tame the seemingly untamable, and produce single varietal Ruby Csbernet wines that demonstrate why the grape was created in the first place. And that is why Forgotten Grapes is here – to introduce you to those particular wines and winemakers. But we should let you know, the number of producers doing 100% Ruby Cabernet is extremely limited. We’re talking “count the number on one hand limited.”
But we found them. Not all of them, but some of them. Those that we like best. But more about them below.
So that’s the ballad of this week’s Forgotten Grape Ruby Cabernet, the rap-rock combination for Forgotten Grapes. Don’t shed a tear for it. Much like rap-rock, it came
into existence not out of necessity but out of curiosity, and like rap-rock, it entertained the masses and served a purpose before fading into the ephemera. But both still exist, maintained by those hardcore freaks who hold a passion for the music and a passion
for the grape. And like any good music genre, it’s time will once again return. And
when it does, a whole lot of people are going to be appreciating all Ruby
Cabernet has to offer, and they’re going to wonder where it’s been all their
life and why they didn’t know about it sooner.
What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What It Tastes Like
Ruby Cabernet looks like:
Ruby Cabernet smells like:
Ruby Cabernet tastes like:
When produced properly, Ruby Cabernets will have noses similar to Cabernet Sauvignons: alive with richness and darker fruits such as plums and currants. You might also get a toffee smell on the wine, or an aged berry scent to it as well. Hints of fig are also not uncommon on most low yield, handcrafted Ruby Cabernets. Unfortunately, since that is not the way this grape is typically produced, these scents may not be available on the wine you’re sniffing. We suggest finding yourself a better Ruby Cabernet.
The flavors of Ruby Cabernet can vary wildly based on where the grape was produced (duh!) and how much of it was grown per vine. As we mentioned above, a lot of Ruby Cabernet is overproduced and turned into cheap bulk jug wines. Because the vine’s resources are spread over so much fruit, these wines tend to have weaker flavors of cherries and often high alcohol levels. Ruby Cabernets produced in hotter climates (since the grape is quite drought resistant) can sometimes come off with a plummy or raisiny quality to them. But in cooler climates when the yields are severely limited, Ruby Cabernet can produce deeper, more complex wines with darker cherry and dried fruit flavors that more closely resemble the Cabernet parentage than anything else. You may also get some grittiness or real earthy flavors to a Ruby Cabernet, a testament to the Carignan side and the Spanish and Rhone Valley origins of the grape. Most noticeably, though, will be the tannins in any Ruby Cabernet. They are simply a feature the grape must live with, and no matter how much barreling in however much new oak, those tannins will always be ever-present.
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• Despite France being the point of origin of both of its parents, Ruby Cabernet was actually created in the United States, at the University of California, Davis in 1936, by Dr. Harold P. Olmo, though the grape was not introduced into the public until 1948. Ruby Cabernet was actually Dr. Olmo’s first successful hybridization and remains the oldest still-existing hybrid grape of the 30 total hybrids he created. Dr. Olmo is also known in California wine history as creating the first vine quarantine area in the United States, on the U.C. Davis campus, that allowed winemakers to import Vitis vinifera vines from Europe, Australia, and other regions and subsequently expand winemaking in California.
• Born in the United States and raised in the United States, Ruby Cabernet is not found in any quantity of note anywhere else in the world. Oh sure, there’s some grown in Argentina that is used in blends with Tannat (a Forgotten Grape we’ll be covering in the near future), and increasingly small amounts are still farmed in Australia and Chile, but are more often than not thrown into blends to provide tannin and backbone to the wine, and then not acknowledged anywhere on the label. South Africa for a spell became enamored with the grape (which makes sense given their devotion to another hybrid red grape Pinotage, which we’ll be covering next week. Spoiler alert!), especially in the hotter, more inland regions of the country, but ultimately winemakers didn’t know what to do with it and started tearing up the vines and replacing them with more profitable and easier to work with vines. So it’s really only here in the United States that we have any sort of continuing legacy with Ruby Cabernet, and even that is decreasing by the year and winemakers have less time and profit margin to experiment with more challenging grapes. It’s a shame, really. But such is life. And wine.
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Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties
From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate
“Okay, a really tough wine this week, because of its high tannins and the fact that it is typically made into jug wines and I don’t pair anything with jug wines. I mean, if you’re going to be drinking a jug wine, just go get yourself some McDonald’s or something. Maybe a TV dinner. But if you’ve got a good quality Ruby Cab that has the tannins but some of the elegance of a Cab and a bit of the rugged earthiness of Carignan, you need a big dish to match it. So I’d go with braised short ribs. But here’s the kicker: you’ve got to braise them in something sweet and wet and sticky to give it enough structure to handle the wine. So I’d braise those short ribs in Root Beer. Root Beer is like one of my favorite things in the world to braise short ribs in, and if you’ve got some left over, blend it with some molasses and reduce that whole thing, then use that as a sace with the short ribs. Maybe add in some Hoisin or even some chili pepper to give it a little kick. But the short ribs should stand up to the wine, and you’ll get a nice contrast between the sweet mellowness of the braise and the sauce and the tannins and fruits in the wine. Enjoy.”
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Chef Brein Clements is the chef/owner of Bistro O (formerly Restaurant Omakase) in
Riverside, CA, which is quickly becoming SoCal’s answer to El Bulli. Minus the molecular
gastronomy. He began his cooking career at Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley and
moved on to become Chef de Cuisine at the famed Balboa Bay Club before opening his
own restaurant. Plus he’s only 28. My man knows his wine and he knows his food. Each
week he’ll provide ingredient and dish recommendations that match up well with the
week’s forgotten grape. You should heed what he says. No, seriously, heed it.
2006 Milla Vineyard California Ruby Cabernet
When people think about wine regions in Calfornia, their immediate reactions are
usually to Napa or Sonoma, perhaps Santa Barbara or Paso Robles or the Central Coast,
maybe even to (God forbid) Temecula. But you hardly ever think of Fresno when you
think of wine in California. Which is a shame, because there’s some terrific wineries
doing some really interesting things in Fresno. Including our new friends Joey and
Debbie Milla. Like other Fresno wineries, Joey is experimenting with some pretty
off-the-beaten-path varietals, and he’s the only we know of up there working with
Ruby Cabernet. His Ruby Cab has a deep brick/clay color to it and the nose had elements
of a Port and toffee in it, as well as some older berry and fig aromas to it. One
of our tasters actually equated the nose to a Fig Newton, which we all agreed with
and liked as a descriptor. On the palate, the wine reminded us of dried cherries
and cranberries. You could taste the dryness of the Carignan right off the bat before
the richness of the Cab side of the grape took over. It’s acidity held up well in
this nicely balanced wine that seemed to manage to tame the tannins usually associated
with the grape. And surprisingly, there was some sweet cherry/strawberry flavor on
the aftertaste, not unlike a Twizzler. A really nice surprise for our entire tasting
squadron. The Milla Winery is the only place you can get this wine, but fortunately
for you, they’ve got a website where you can order it and they’ll ship it to you.
And for all you chocolate lovers out there, you may want to consider their Chocolick
Wine package, which pairs a few bottles of Milla Ruby Cabernet with chocolates specially
prepared by ChocoLick, Inc. It’s a package designed for your health (no, really it
is!) so check it out here and be sure to support one of the rare quality Ruby Cab
producers here in California.
NV Cap*Rock Winery “Blush Royale” Texas Rosé of Ruby Cabernet
We already know what you’re going to say. Texas? Wine from Texas. Yes. Wine from
Texas. And pretty good wine from Texas to boot. Like we said, actual single varietal
quality Ruby Cabernet producers here in the U.S. are few and far-between, so when
we heard about this particular rosé made exclusively from Ruby Cabernet, well we
had to try it. And our new friend Phillip over at Cap*Rock (love that asterisk!)
was nice enough to send us a bottle.
As it says in its description on the website, it’s a sweeter style of rosé, with
lots of bright fruit flavors–cherries and strawberries. You still pick up some of
the tannin from the grape in the wine (which is a bit of an anomaly in most rosés,
since they don’t spend a lot of time on the skins and seeds picking up the tannins,
which is a testament to how much tannin is contained inside each Ruby Cab grape),
but there’s enough acid and sweetness that it balances it out. You’ll know it’s there,
but you won’t notice it. It’s a wine with a bright ruby, almost fire-engine or Ferrari
red color, and it definitely had one of the most intriguing noses we’ve ever smelled
on a wine. We picked up lots of vegetal scents, including (and we’re not kidding)
jalapenos and onions. In fact, one of our tasters swore she got jalapeno cheese dip
on the nose of the wine. Now we’re not that familiar with Texas wines, but those
would be Texas scents if we ever knew them! The wine had very fruit punch flavor
up front, but you really picked up the richness and ruggedness of the Ruby cabernet
grape by mid-palate, a fullness that lasts all the way through aftertaste. The only
thing we thought missing from the wine was a crisper tartness or acidity in it to
really make everything pop and make it refreshing. But it was still novel, unique,
and highly drinkable. It reminded me of wines made from the native American Pink
Catawba and Symphony grapes. There was a consensus among us that this would make
a killer traditional Sangria base, as the lemon, apple, and lemon pieces would add
that missing acidity, and a healthy dose of brandy would bring out the richness of
the wine. And for the record, Brein would pair this wine with the classic Tex-Mex
combo of chips and guacamole, or the aforementioned jalapeno cheese dip, or even
a chili relleno.
Cap*Rock wines are available throughout Texas and Colorado, so you can use this handy
page here to find the closest wine shop near you carrying Cap*Rock, or how to harangue
your local wine shop to start carrying them. We’d suggest contacting those that
do carry Cap*Rock wines and having them send you a couple of bottles of this wonderful
rosé before summer arrives. Trust us, you’re going to want it with your next Mexican
meal.
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Our Friend of the Forgotten Grapes Tasting Squadron tastes all of the wines you see
here ahead of time to ensure that you aren’t getting anything rotten or clunky. We
also try to ensure that most of the wines highlighted here are affordably priced
($20 or less) so you can try them out for yourself without having to take out a second
mortgage or sacrificing your kid (or future kid’s) college fund to do so. Lastly,
the Friends of the Forgotten Grapes has relationships with all the fine wine purveyors
we link to in this section. We know them, we trust them. You can order these wines
from them online right now and be trying them out in the next couple of days. Do
yourself a favor and order from them by using the links below. It’s totally worth
it. And tell them that ForgottenGrapes.com sent you, too.
If you remember back to our expose on Carignan (we love you, Snooki! We really do! Call us!), then you’ll remember that Carignan wines tend to be very dark, due to the dark purple color of their skins. Ruby Cabernet is no different, as it was bred with the intention of retaining Carignan’s dark color but enhanced with the violets and purples of Cabernet. Well, mission accomplished there. Ruby Cabernets are dark, dark wines, and even a Ruby Cab rosé is going to have a very vibrant and rich red color to it, almost similar to a Tavel rosé, one of the darker rosés in all for France.
Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It. 
Harken back with us now to a simpler time, June of 1991. Boris Yeltsin had just been elected President of the newly independent Russia; a speedy, spiky-haired blue hedgehog named Sonic makes his debut on Sega Genesis-enacted TV screens everywhere; a young, charismatic governor from Arkansas has not decided yet whether to throw his hat into the Presidential race or not; Michael Jordan
But Don’t Just Take Our Word for It...
Whenever possible, Friends of the Forgotten Grapes will offer up a short interview
with a winemaker working with the week’s featured Forgotten Grape. It’s his or her
chance to tell you a little bit more about who they are, the winery and wines, and
how he or she got started working with this particular Forgotten Grape. We do this
because we want you to get to know the winemakers and better understand their mind
set and passions for particular Forgotten Grapes. We also do this because we’re givers
and only want to make you happy. Isn’t that enough for you? What more do you want?
This week’s interview is with Joey Milla, owner and winemaker of Milla Vineyards
in Fresno, California. Joey is a third-generation winemaker and a prominent member
of the greater winemaking community in Fresno. Sadly, Fresno gets a bad rap because
of its proximity to California’s Central Valley, not exactly considered a hot bed
of fine wine making. But we disagree and believe that there are fine wines being
produced in Fresno, and Joey is on the forefront of producing them. He’s also a mad
scientist willing to work with any and all grapes he can get his hands on, including
one particular varietal we’d never even heard of, and as far as we know, he’s the
only one producing a wine from it. We promised him we’d devote an entire page to
that varietal and his wine from it (look for that early next year) but for now, we’re
going to talk Ruby Cabernet. And away we go:
Friends of the Forgotten Grapes: I know your grandfather was a wine maker many years
ago, but what drew you to following in his footsteps as a wine maker and how did
you get your start?
Joey Milla: I am all about tradition and family. As far as my entry into winemaking,
I got my start making homemade wine with my dad when I was younger. In fact, my dad
just turned 88 years old on January 30th.
FoFG: Talk to us a little bit about Ruby Cabernet: what attracted you to start producing
with the varietal, what you like most about the wines, what is so special about it,
and what kind of a future you see it having?
JM: We have been growing Ruby Cabernet for about 25 years now, so it was natural
to use this grape in my wine making. I think it has great body, is well balanced,
and if done the way we do it, it's like drinking the grape. I think it has a great
future as a single varietal wine.
FoFG: At Milla Vineyards, you produce your wines in a very unique way that really
goes out of your way to make you an organic winery. Please tell us more about how
you make the wines using natural yeast and no pumping or pressing.
JM: Let me start off by saying we are not a organic winery, due to the fact that
our grapes are not organic. But all of our wines are organically produced. After
the grapes go into the crusher/de-stemmer, the must ferments then goes straight into
barrels for aging. I can tell you that we only use 100% free-run juice for all of
our wines, but what makes our unique body, balance, and that great fruit-forwardness
is not only a family secret, but a trade secret as well. Sorry.
FoFG: No worries. Family secrets stay that way for a reason. Switching gears, your
winery is based out of Fresno, which is a wine region here in California that doesn’t
get a lot of publicity. Please tell us more about the Fresno wine region and some
of the other wineries out there we should be keeping our eye on, beyond Milla of
course. Why do you think Fresno has not been recognized yet with either its own AVA
[American Viticulture Appellation] designation or as one of the important California
wine regions, given its ample resources and agricultural nature?
JM: Well, Chris, as you may know, Fresno county grows 25% of all the wine grape grown
in California. As far as its own AVA, Fresno does not have its own designation, but
Fresno County does. However, until we can change the mindset of the general public,
using the generic California AVA designation works better for us than using Fresno
County. I think what will give not only Fresno but all the growing regions the recognition
that they deserves would be having to put where the grapes are grown along with where
the wine is made on the bottle.
FoFG: In addition to Ruby Cabernet, I know you would with a lot of other varietals
at Milla, including some Italian varietals. How did you come to work with these grapes,
what are some of your favorites to both make wine and drink, and are there any other
varietals out there that you?re either experimenting with now or would like to plant
in the near future?
JM: There is always something new coming out of our winery. We have a lot of fun
with blends. One in particular has 8 different wines blended together, and our dry
rosé is a blend of 50% of one white varietal and 25% each of two different reds.
But i think the one that we’re most proud of is our Sunset wine. It is made out of
100% Marroo, which I suspect is a grape that even you have never heard of. And we
have 10 of the roughly 90 total acres of the varietal planted in the U.S.
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