Winemaker Notes
Moniker Cabernet Sauvignon is a structured wine showcasing the best of Mendocino’s bench-land vineyards. From maceration to fermentation, Moniker worked to preserve the wine’s tannic backbone: cold soaking the grapes for two days, pumping over the cap, and briefly leaving some of the lots on the skins for greater extraction. They chose a Languedoc yeast strain prized for delivering optimum fore-mouth volume while retaining varietally correct flavors of currant, black olive and tobacco.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine from Mendocino's Thornhill family offers a classic example of the variety. It shows tones of black cherry, wet earth and leather, framed in firm tannins and touches of sophisticated oak without being too full bodied.
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 large and diverse appellation within California’s North Coast AVA, Mendocino is home to several smaller sub-regions—most notably the Anderson Valley. This scenic region, with rolling hills covered in redwood forests as well as vineyards, is one of the world’s top producers of certified organically-grown grapes. Due to wide geographical and climatic variation, a vast array of wine styles can be found here.