Winemaker Notes
Showcasing Crown Point's flagship variety Cabernet Sauvignon, the mild growing season imparted a natural sweetness and elegance. A blend of two varieties, the Cabernet Sauvignon provides spice notes with a red fruit profile, whereas the Cabernet Franc brings tension and complexity. With a 30-day fermentation average, they drained and raised the wine to barrels for 22 months - 50% new and 50% once used. The result is a wine with many layers and site-specific freshness. Notably, the hillside blocks offer the trademark savory tannin profile, providing a longer aging life.
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, blended with 10% Cabernet Franc, has opened significantly since I tasted it in March of 2022. Deep ruby in color, its aromatics have become more layered, with ringing tones of violet complementing blueberry, black cherry and redcurrants, plus sparks of aniseed, prosciutto and desert herbs. The palate is plush and supple, offering alluring spicy accents and generous, yet never onerous, fruit. Refreshing bursts of acidity call you back to the glass, and it finishes with fantastic length. It blossoms considerably as it spends time in the glass, alluding to continued evolution in bottle.
Rating: 98+ -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon (90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc) is also brilliant, with a medium to full-bodied, vibrant, focused, elegant profile revealing pure cassis fruit, some background oak, and silky tannins that emerge on the finish. Aged 23 months in 50% new barrels, everything is in the right place, it’s balanced, and can be drunk any time over the coming 15+ years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Blackberry and wild herb aromas are kissed by woodspice on the nose of this bottling. There's a firm grip to the palate, where sticky tannins frame oregano, thyme and tart berry flavors, as the finish grows creamier with brioche notes.
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James Suckling
This is a full-bodied red with ripe blackberries and plums, notes of licorice and cloves and some earthiness. Touch of mushroom, too. Ripe and soft on the palate with sweetish fruit and velvety tannins. Long, fruity finish...
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.