Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Even better, the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Pedregal Vineyard offers an incredible density and depth of fruit as well as a huge nose of blackcurrants, licorice, chocolate, and lead pencil notes. With good acidity, full body, and building tannin, it’s another blockbuster, classic wine from this estate that readers should be happy to have in their cellar. Drink bottles over the coming 15 years or more.
-
Wine Spectator
A rich, potent, tightly wound and focused effort, with tiers of mineral, currrant, dried berry, sage, black licorice and toasty herb flavors. This unfolds slowly, opening gradually to more layers and dimensions. Best from 2013 through 2022.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep ruby, the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Pedregal Vineyard, a blend of 84% Cabernet Sauvignon and 16% Petit Verdot, opens with baked plum, blackcurrant, fried sage, graphite, milk chocolate, leather and nori with a spicy core and licorice notions. It's medium-bodied and silky, the fruits segueing to tertiary layers, with firm, gently chalky tannins and good freshness, finishing very long and chocolaty. 601 cases were made.
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.