Winemaker Notes
This wine is heady with aromas of intense black currant, tobacco, graphite, baked plums, and hints of dried sage. On the palate this wine is rich with voluptuous texture. This seductive beauty is lush with beautiful layers of fruit and graceful tannins with a long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
The 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Tomahawk Vineyard was aged for 18 months in 60–70% new French oak. This site sits at the southernmost end of the estate, producing a wine that is rich, ripe, and powerful. Dark black and blue fruit compote is layered with graphite, liquorice, and elegant cedarwood notes. The palate is driven by a spicy mineral-acid tension, with intense, chocolatey tannins that provide remarkable staying power. Emerging graphite, sage, white pepper, and hints of cumin add depth and complexity, leading to a long, structured finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Smoky black fruits, graphite, leafy tobacco, and a Graves-like cold fireplace character all define the 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Tomahawk Vineyard, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon that's medium to full-bodied, has a pure, layered, elegant mouthfeel, beautiful tannins, and a great finish. Raised in 70% new French oak, it's a balanced, nicely structured 2022 that defies the vintage. It's going to benefit from 2-4 years in the cellar and see its 20th birthday in fine form. It's a classy, elegant, textbook Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon with tons to love.
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James Suckling
The nose is deep and brooding, with aromas of blackcurrants, cassis and roasted game meat. The palate is full-bodied with fine tannins and acidity, giving notes of blackberry compote, spices and tobacco leaves. Very savory and dark. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
This is solid for the vintage, with almost winey black cherry and black currant fruit that’s fleshy in feel, albeit rather up-front overall. The finish sports a strong toasty element, but there’s polish, with a hint of iris mixed in for range. Drink now through 2031.
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.
Legend has it that quick and nimble stags would escape the indigenous hunters of southern Napa Valley through the landmark palisades that sit just northeast of the current city of Napa. As a result, the area was given the name, Stags Leap. While its grape-growing history dates back to the mid-1800s, winemaking didn’t really take off until the mid-1970s after a small but pivotal blind tasting called the Judgement of Paris.
When a 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon won first place against its high-profile Bordeaux contenders, like Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Haut-Brion, international attention to the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley escalated rapidly.
The vineyards in this one-of-a-kind wine growing region receive hot afternoon air reflecting off of its eastern palisade formation. In combination with the cool evening breezes from the San Pablo Bay just south, this becomes an optimal environment for grape growing. While many varieties could thrive here, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate with virtually no others, save for a spot or two of Syrah.
Stags Leap soils—eroded volcanic and old river sediments—encourage well established root systems and result in complex, terroir-driven wines. Stags Leap District reds have a distinct sour cherry and black berry character with baking spice and dried earth aromas, and supple tannins.