Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon that spent 26 months in new French oak, the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon is unquestionably the finest vintage from this estate to date. It sports a deep, saturated purple color to go with flat out gorgeous notes of crème de cassis, lead pencil, spice and vanilla bean. Concentrated, broad and expansive, with ripe, polished tannin, it’s a big step up from the 2013 and up with the finest Bordeaux blends I’ve tasted from Santa Barbara County. Give it a few years to integrate its oak and enjoy bottles over the following two decades or more.
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Wine Enthusiast
A deep, velvety purple color in the glass, this bottling by proprietor Roger Bower and winemaker Adam Henkel shows dark-chocolate-covered black cherries, fresh blackberry, white pepper, violet oil, port reduction sauce and spice sake on the lavish nose. Firm tannins frame the palate, which carries black currant and roasted lean beef flavors through soy and pepper sauce into a finish of caramel and espresso grinds.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon (100%) is drinking beautifully now and has what it needs to continue to evolve in bottle over the next decade. Medium ruby-purple in color, it has pure aromatic nuances of dried herbs, lilac, iron, game meats and mint chocolate, and the palate explodes with plummy fruits. It's silky, fresh and perfumed with fine minty, earthy tones on the long finish.
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James Suckling
Wow, a brilliant wine that's beginning to show its best stuff at 10 years. Quite firm and structured still, full-bodied, but generous in spearmint, cocoa and creme de cassis flavors that expand on the palate and linger in the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Rich and powerfully spiced, featuring finely textured dark plum, currant and dark cherry flavors that are quite creamy. Mediu-grained tannins show on the finish, with plenty of chocolate and allspice accents. Drink now through 2024.
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.
On the eastern end of the Santa Ynez Valley, the rolling hills of the tiny Happy Canyon AVA produce top quality reds from Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and whites from Sauvignon blanc. The region’s low-nutrient soil grows smaller vines and in turn, higher quality wine grapes.