Winemaker Notes
This wine is multi-dimensional with incredible layers, depth, persistence, and complexity. This is a wine that truly exemplifies both the personality of Hewitt Vineyard and the outstanding 2014 vintage. Hewitt Cabernet Sauvignon is very age-worthy, however, if you can’t wait to drink it, decanting is suggested to allow the flavors to evolve and reveal their great complexity and elegance.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The purity of this wine is crazy. Blue fruits with aromas of oyster shell and Indian ink. Full-bodied yet tight and reserved. A fabulous finish of ultra-fine tannins and focused fruit. This is a superb young Napa cab. Give it three to four years of bottle age. New Napa cult?
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon has a deep garnet-purple color and fragrant nose of cedar, violets, potpourri and crushed blueberries over a core of black currants and plums, plus a hint of dusty earth. Medium to full-bodied, the palate reveals impressive energy, with tons of perfumed black fruit and earthy layers supported by firm, grainy tannins, finishing long and lively.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From Rutherford and aged 21 months in 75% new French oak, the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon is a big, rich, oaky wine that needs 4-5 years of bottle age to come together, which is certainly not the norm in the vintage. Possessing lots of cassis, vanilla oak, and spice, it's full-bodied, nicely balanced and concentrated, with lots of tannins. It's good, but just needs time. 92+ points
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Wine Spectator
Bold and rich, with a firm core of licorice-laced blackberry, currant and plum, with touches of cedar and cigar box. Offers hints of vanilla and mocha, gliding along on the finish. Drink now through 2032.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.