Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2019 Pilcrow Ghost Block Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the most beautiful Cabs produced from the Yountville AVA. TASTING NOTES: This wine excels with alluring aromas and flavors of dried earth, savory spices, and mixed berries. Enjoy it with grilled lamb kebabs and a white wine sauce with fresh garden herbs. (Tasted: April 17, 2022, San Francisco, CA)
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Ghost Block is all Cabernet Sauvignon from Yountville brought up in French oak. It has a tight, fresher, old school-like feel that blossoms with air and offers a darker core of red and blue fruits as well as notes of leather, spring flowers, and damp earth. It’s fresh and lively, yet also concentrated, with ripe tannins, good acidity, and outstanding length on the finish.
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.
One of Napa Valley's most historic sub-appellations, Yountville spreads through some of the valley's ideal cooler sites and enjoys success with a handful of different and significant grape varieties.
Syrah competes strongly with Cabernet Sauvignon here for optimal vineyard real estate followed by Pinot noir, Pinot blanc and Sauvignon blanc.
This sub-AVA of Napa Valley is rich in the history that makes Napa Valley what it is today, and not just for red wines. Moët & Chandon entered the California winemaking business via Yountville in 1973 with the establishment Domaine Chandon. Their goal has always been to produce top quality méthode champenoise sparkling wines.
Christian Moueix, originally responsible for managing Chateau Petrus and La Fleur-Petrus in Pomerol, arrived in Yountville in the early 1980s. He formed a partnership with Rohin Lail and Marcia Smith, inheritors of Napanook vineyard from their father John Daniel of Inglenook in Rutherford. In 1995 Moueix became sole owner of Napanook and chose the name Dominus, which today produces some of Napa’s highest scoring, age-worthy Bordeaux Blends.