Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Coming from a site in the Happy Canyon region, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Vogelzang Vineyard is a classic, more old-school style of Cabernet Sauvignon that prizes purity, precision, and elegance above outright power. Notes of cassis, cedar pencil, underbrush, and tobacco all give way to a ripe, seamless, balanced effort that has polished tannins, no hard edges, and a great finish. It's another wine here that can be drunk today with pleasure or cellared for 10-15 years (or more).
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Wine Enthusiast
Intense blackberry and black-currant aromas meet with violet on the nose of this bottling by Bill Wathen and Dick Doré. There is a pure expression of blackberry on the palate, alongside roasted espresso, peppercorn-spice and tangy black-plum flavors.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Vogelzang Vineyard has a medium to deep ruby color and opens to notes of cedar and nutmeg with blackcurrant, warm black cherries and berries plus accents of chocolate, coffee bean and blackcurrant bud. Medium to full-bodied, it's got tons of spicy fruits in the mouth with very firm tannins and good acidity, with a very long, chocolaty 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.