Winemaker Notes
Deliciously well-dressed with black currants, Godiva chocolate, kidskin gloves, and plenty of gravitas. Plush fruits and fresh character are deftly woven with mocha, cedar and tobacco spices all stitched with a supple hand and topped with tidy coat-tails.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
As to the Cabernets, these are all terrific, with the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon offering textbook, ripe black fruits, toasty oak, chocolate, and spice-driven aromas and flavors. This full-bodied, incredibly satisfying, powerful Cabernet exemplifies the vintage’s fresh, nicely balanced style. It's going to keep for 15 years.
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Wine Spectator
A crowd pleaser style, this red is ripe and focused, with very lush blackberry compote, cassis and plum purée notes streaming through, underscored with black licorice on the fleshy and liberally toasted finish. Drink now through 2028.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
The richness and sheer fruity depth inherent in good, Napa Valley Cabernet is on full display here, and, even if pushing the limits of full ripeness, this ample wine draws back from the brink. It is mouthfilling stuff, to be sure, but it carries its richness capably in an extracted, well-structured, very expressive package, and it has all of the right pieces in all of the right places to age famously. and improve for years. Put it away in a quiet corner of the cellar and let it sit undisturbed for six to ten years with full faith in its even longer-term future.
One of the most prestigious wines of the world capable of great power and grace, Napa Valley Cabernet is a leading force in the world of fine, famous, collectible red wine. Today the Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon are so intrinsically linked that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this marriage came to light; sudden international recognition rained upon Napa with the victory of the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Cabernet Sauvignon undoubtedly dominates Napa Valley today, covering half of the land under vine, commanding the highest prices per ton and earning the most critical acclaim. Cabernet Sauvignon’s structure, acidity, capacity to thrive in multiple environs and ability to express nuances of vintage make it perfect for Napa Valley where incredible soil and geographical diversity are found and the climate is perfect for grape growing. Within the Napa Valley lie many smaller sub-AVAs that express specific characteristics based on situation, slope and soil—as a perfect example, Rutherford’s famous dust or Stags Leap District's tart cherry flavors.