Mount Eden Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Blend: 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Extremely elegant and restrained at first on the nose, this bottling eventually shows gravel and crushed rocks, with hints of blackberry and forest underbrush also emerging. A very firm structure weaves together an incredibly well-integrated wine, with dense mulberry and dried-fennel notes that morph into crushed herbs with time. Drink 2018–2032. Cellar Selection.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate (78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and the rest Petit Verdot) is beautiful. Giving up lots of black and blue fruits, tobacco leaf, sweet oak and graphite, this fabulous Santa Cruz Mountain Cabernet is medium to full-bodied, nicely concentrated and focused, with fine tannin and impeccable balance. It shows its class on the lengthy finish as well. It's a baby and needs to be forgotten for 4-5 years and will have more than two decades of overall longevity.
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Wine & Spirits
Like the 2012 Monte Bello grown one ridge to the north, the 2012 Mount Eden Cabernet is surprisingly open and welcoming in its youth. It has the mountains’ characteristic black olive and rosemary scents, but presents them in a polished, gently buffed texture that’s already delicious, its firmness implicit rather than explicit. You could decant this now for lamb, although its savory tones should take on more complexity with ten years in bottle. (1,636 cases)
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The Mount Eden Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon—one of the great wines from the Santa Cruz Mountains—often reminds me of the great classified wines from the upper Médoc on the left bank of Bordeaux—firm, stately and durable. The excellent 2012 exhibits concentrated berries and sweet earth that are just beginning to open up. Drinks fairly well now. (Tasted: August 22, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Decanter
Dense brambly blackcurrant nose with lots of aromatic punch. Rich, ripe, and seductive, with sweet intense fruit of considerable purity. This has finesse, line, and poise, and good acidity on the finish; classically structured.
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Wine Spectator
Firmly built, with structure, focus and density, this offers a mix of taut dark berry, graphite, loamy earth, crushed rock and dried herb. A wine apart from the pack. Best from 2021 through 2035.
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Mount Eden Vineyards is a small historic wine estate perched at 2000 feet overlooking Silicon Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountain Appellation, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. Founded in 1945, it is recognized as one of the original “boutique” California winery properties, focusing on small lots of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Mount Eden’s lineage of estate bottled Chardonnay and Pinot Noir is the longest in California. Planted in austere, infertile Franciscan shale on a cool, exposed mountaintop, these low-yielding estate vineyards have consistently produced world-class wines for over a half-century. In 2007 Mount Eden acquired an additional 55 acre wine estate in the Saratoga foothills, which was christened Domaine Eden.
Mount Eden Vineyards also produces non-estate Chardonnays from the central coast, primarily Edna Valley. They have great success making Chardonnay from the Wolff Vineyard and are continually recognized as making outstanding wines from that region.
Since 1981 Jeffrey Patterson has guided the winemaking and grape growing at Mount Eden. His emphasis is on wine growing rather than winemaking; and an obsession with gentleness and naturalness in the handling of the grapes and wines is his ongoing passion.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
A rugged and topographically diverse cool-climate appellation with a rich history, the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA stretches from Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco, to the northern border of Monterey County. Elevations range from 800 feet to upwards of 3,000 and microclimates vary substantially depending on which side of the mountains the vineyards lie; cool ocean winds and fog play an important role here. This can be a challenging region in which to grow grapes, but it is well worth the effort. Santa Cruz Mountains wines are noted for balanced acidity levels, often showing great aging potential. Wine has been made here since the 1800s, most notably from the legendary Ridge Vineyards, whose Monte Bello vineyard garners international admiration.
Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are the stars of this region, while Merlot and Zinfandel also perform quite well. Organic and sustainable vineyard practices are becoming increasingly common.