Winemaker Notes
Racy and saturated with hints of blackberry pie and forest floor, the 2019 vintage wears the mantle of Napa Valley at its core with the best of Oakville’s high tone personality. Youthful and luminous we love the bold fruit accentuated by juicy and round tannins. Bright and lovely, It can be admired while young but will enjoy a long life with further cellaring. The concentration of inviting flavors and graceful balance is a direct reflection of a wonderful growing season.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon is shaping up be another jewel of a wine from Rosemary Cakebread. Ample and explosive, the Cabernet shows all of the natural richness of the vintage in spades. Whereas the 2018 is bright and somewhat reticent, the 2019 is very much an extrovert. I would give it a few years to soften and shed some baby fat. Crème de cassis, licorice and lavender add the closing shades of complexity.
Barrel Sample: 95-98 -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, which includes 3% Cabernet Franc and is all from the Oakville Ranch Vineyard, is top notch stuff and certainly plays with the best in the vintage. Beautiful black fruits, crushed stone, spicy oak, and floral notes define the bouquet, and it’s medium to full-bodied, with ripe yet certainly present tannins and one heck of a great finish. This beautiful wine will evolve for 25-30 years if stored properly.
Rating: 96+ -
James Suckling
Ripe blueberries, blackberries, walnuts, cigar box and dried leaves on the nose. Crushed stones too. Full-bodied with firm tannins and a plush, deep core of dark fruit. Firm and concentrated.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Gallica's 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Ranch Vineyard offers up impressively concentrated blueberry and cassis fruit, limned with notes of dark chocolate, loam and faint hints of sage and bay leaf. It's medium to full-bodied and rather modestly textured, with a slightly coarse feel on the finish. Perhaps I'm being overly critical, but I just don't see the same beauty in this vintage that prior reviewers have in preceding ones—it comes across as rather chunky and lacking a degree of elegance.
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.
Home to some of the most sought-after Cabernet Sauvignon in America, Napa Valley’s Oakville district stretches across the center of Napa's valley floor and foothills between the Vaca and Mayacamas Mountains. This AVA is home to the legendary To Kalon Vineyard and Martha's Vineyard, as well as many powerhouse wineries including Screaming Eagle, Silver Oak, Robert Mondavi, Opus One, Far Niente and Groth.
The climate is generally warm and agreeable, resulting in year after year of favorable vintages. Summer days see a gentle tug of war between warmer inland air and the cool air coming in from the San Pablo Bay, creating an ideal environment to grow red varieties. Oakville's diverse soils, namely ancient sea bedrock, clay and gravel, are well-drained, and perfect for high-caliber viticulture.
Cabernet here is often bottled varietally but is also popular in Bordeaux Blends. Oakville wines are known for their silky, sensual textures, structured tannins, dark and brooding fruit and lovely aromatics. These age-worthy and prestigious wines are favored by collectors throughout the world.