Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is the first year Marietta has produced this Cabernet Sauvignon from a south-facing vineyard perched at 1400 feet elevation overlooking the Yorkville Highlands. This small block of clone 6 Cabernet is cane pruned and yields “2 tons per acre in a good year via many insanely small open clusters”. It was aged in neutral barrels for 20 months. Deep garnet-purple, the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Game Trail displays a spicy nose of cloves, cinnamon and Sichuan pepper over a core of crème de cassis, dried Mediterranean herbs and black soil. Medium to full-bodied, rich and concentrated, the generous fruit is well supported by grainy tannins and a lively backbone, finishing with lingering mineral suggestions.
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Wine Enthusiast
Big and rich yet also complex and layered, this wine has an extremely dark color and spicy, floral, perfumed fruit flavors that spread out for a mouthfilling texture. Full bodied, fascinating and luscious, it hails from a high-elevation vineyard in Mendocino County.
Starting with only a handful of purchased grapes in 1978, Marietta Cellars has been a standout winery in Sonoma and Mendocino since the very beginning. Founded by Chris Bilbro, a Sonoma County native with winemaking roots dating back three generations, Marietta rose to prominence with its revolutionary Old Vine Red, a California red blend that essentially created the category. The winery has slowly expanded its estate holdings over the past thirty years, evolving into a beacon for high quality, balanced Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and Rhône variety blends. Now fully estate-based and organically farmed, Marietta has vineyards spanning 310 acres in the Alexander Valley, McDowell Valley, and Yorkville Highlands. Notable among their heritage plantings are California’s oldest Syrah blocks, planted in the late 1800s.
Scot Bilbro, Chris’s son, has brought Marietta into its next, incredibly exciting phase. After graduating from UC Davis with a degree in Viticulture and Enology in 2007, Scot joined the winery full-time, assuming the role of winemaker in 2012. Steeped in the history of the California wine country and the traditions established by his father, Scot combines his creativity and technical background in guiding the winery’s vision of viticulture and winemaking. Today, the fusion of traditional values and style with modern precision have culminated in the most highly regarded wines of Marietta’s four decade history.
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.
A unique appellation placed in between the warm, Sonoma County Alexander Valley and the cooler Mendocino County's Anderson Valley, the Yorkville Highlands’ gravel soils are ideal for Bordeaux varieties and other full-bodied reds.