Cain - and, yes, the mysterious Cain Five wine - are, well, fabulous.

This pool sort of encapsulates my feelings about Cain: gorgeous, remote, exclusive. This pool sits at the edge of the Cain property overlooking the Napa Valley below. They've got, by the way, about 90 acres of terraced vines situated on 500 total acres in the Spring Mountain AVA (American Viticultural Area). It's almost better than an infinity pool - you know the type that looks like it runs off into the ocean over some fabulous beach in, say, Cabo? - because here you get the infinity effect over the freaking Napa Valley. Maybe this is just really impressive to wine geeks like me.

Anyhow - you get to use this pool if you're invited to stay at Cain in this amazing mini chateau - they've actually got two mini residences like this all spruced up and ready for wine industry illuminaries. I wasn't invited to stay, so clearly I'm not "big time" enough to score the privilege of lounging by the infinity pool, but I imagine if you're interested in buying lots of Cain wine - meaning LOTS - or writing about it for a very glossy publication you might be able to come and enjoy the chateau.

But that's not really what it's about, now is it? I was much more taken with the spectacular vines on the property than I was with the pool (although, damnit! it was a nice pool!). Here's a pic of some of Cain's vines, as seen from the pool deck. I'm looking back over my shoulder away from Napa towards the Mayacamas Mountains and Sonoma beyond. You can see vines in the foreground and beyond, on top of the next ridge, here. Breathtaking. BTW - Cain has vines that face north, south, east and west on their property, which benefits from thinner mountain soils - forcing the vines to "struggle" - and longer exposure of the vines to sunlight.

The flowers at the winery were also gorgeous, a feat made possible by a full-time groundskeeper. Here's a view of the dogwood in full bloom outside the winery proper. It was really gorgeous.

And, here I am with Francois Bugue, Associate Winemaker at Cain. To Francois's credit, I don't think he spends a lot of time lounging by the pool. Heading into the winery for a tour of the facilities, I couldn't help but catch some of Francois's enthusiasm for the whole operation.

And then, a perfect counterpoint to the manicured perfection of the grounds and piscine outside, the inside of the winery was, well, just what it ought to be: no-frills, not super high-tech, busy. There was stuff going on in there - namely, the racking of some of the wine off of its lees - the dead yeast cells that collect at the bottom of barrels during fermentation - from one barrel and into another.

I'd never actually seen this done before, and it was fascinating. Here's a pic of Francois proudly showing off the lees he's about to toss out. Nice!

Francois also showed us how the bottling line works, explaining that they actually put the wine through it twice - once to get the wine the in bottle and the cork in properly, and a second time just before shipping to apply the labels. The reason for this is that they want to make sure everything looks great and goes according to plan - and apparently there's quite a bit of room for error when you try to do everything at once. I just can't imagine, though, that many wineries take this much care with their bottling. Clearly, Cain isn't your average winery.

Moving on to the really important stuff - the wine! Francois opened up three new bottles for us to try - the winery's most "generic" - if that term can really be used here -wine, Cain Cuvee, their mid-tier offering, Cain Concept, and the illustrious Cain Five, made from a blend of the five key grape varieties of Bordeaux.

They were all delicious, and if I were to apply a blanket term than captured an essense they all possess it would be "smooth." The wines were all just lovely in the mouth - all approachable and fruity but, especially as we moved from the Cuvee towards the Cain Five, increasingly complex.

This smoothness is even more impressive given the relatively low-tech winemaking techniques they use, such as egg white fining, native yeast fermentaiton and foregoing filtration for the Concept and Cain Five. In an age in which wines can be excessively tinkered with to arrive at a manufactured perfection of sorts, Cain isn't doing any of that stuff. The secret, as they say in their marketing materials, is in the grapes. And with yields of less than 1 ton per acre - compared to up to 8 per acre down on the valley floor - Cain clearly isn't overworking its vines, either.

And, so, wrapping up, I'd like to say that if you get a chance to taste any of the Cain wines, DO IT. While the Cain Five absolutely packed the most complex punch of the three wines I tried - redolent with red and black fruit, pine needles, toast, baking spice, cocoa and toffee - the others were delicious as well. I was thrilled to find the Cuvee on the menu at the restaraunt at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite over Memorial Day, and my companion and I thoroughly enjoyed every drop in the bottle.

It was just so...smooth.

www.cainfive.com