Winemaker Notes
Always true to its name, Sagacious presents the embodiment of wisdom exponentially over time, showing an immaculate purity of fruit, structure, and an everlasting finish. The 2019 Sagacious drives an array of mouth-watering black and red fruits, dried cherries, crushed violets, cedar, and dried sweet herbs. Bright, silky, and fresh in its youth, this wine is destined for an extraordinary evolution through infinite layers of aromatics and flavors, producing unbridled umami notes in its graceful aging for many years to come.
Blend: 39% Mourvèdre, 31% Grenache, 30% Syrah
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lots of darker plum and blackberry fruits as well as peppery herbs, spring flowers, and spicy notes emerge from the 2019 Sagacious, another ripe, medium to full-bodied, beautifully balanced red that has tons of minerality and savory earth-like nuances on the palate. As with all of these, it has incredible character and, I have no doubt, a decade of longevity.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Sagacious is a blend of 39% Mourvèdre, 31% Grenache and 30% Syrah, with some whole cluster inclusion. It spent 19 months' maturation in 36% new French oak. Medium ruby-purple, it has red cherry and blueberry fruit with a range of accents from dark spices and earth to bright bitters, lilac and citrus. The palate is silky and super fresh, with spices and mineral character on the long finish. It's lovely now, but it will develop more savory layers with time in bottle.
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James Suckling
A dense yet agile red with blackberry, limestone and chalky character. Full, yet fresh and bright. Cool at the end. Grenache, mourvedre and syrah. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Dynamic and multilayered, with expressive dried cranberry, wild game, black olive and pepper flavors that race along a vibrant, snappy finish. Mourvèdre, Grenache and Syrah.
With bold fruit flavors and accents of sweet spice, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre form the base of the classic Rhône Red Blend, while Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise often come in to play. Though they originated from France’s southern Rhône Valley, with some creative interpretation, Rhône blends have also become popular in other countries. Somm Secret—Putting their own local spin on the Rhône Red Blend, those from Priorat often include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, it is not uncommon to see Petite Sirah make an appearance.
Paso Robles has made a name for itself as a source of supple, powerful, fruit-driven Central Coast wines. But with eleven smaller sub-AVAs, there is actually quite a bit of diversity to be found in this inland portion of California’s Central Coast.
Just east over the Santa Lucia Mountains from the chilly Pacific Ocean, lie the coolest in the region: Adelaida, Templeton Gap and (Paso Robles) Willow Creek Districts, as well as York Mountain AVA and Santa Margarita Ranch. These all experience more ocean fog, wind and precipitation compared to the rest of the Paso sub-appellations. The San Miguel, (Paso Robles) Estrella, (Paso Robles) Geneso, (Paso Robles) Highlands, El Pomar and Creston Districts, along with San Juan Creek, are the hotter, more western appellations of the greater Paso Robles AVA.
This is mostly red wine country, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel standing out as the star performers. Other popular varieties include Merlot, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Grenache and Rhône blends, both red and white. There is a fairly uniform tendency here towards wines that are unapologetically bold and opulently fruit-driven, albeit with a surprising amount of acidity thanks to the region’s chilly nighttime temperatures.