Winemaker Notes
Round Pond's flagship Estate Cabernet Sauvignon bursts from the glass with alluring aromas of bright red fruit with a hint of dark fruit and cherry cordial. Soft and approachable, this wine shows essences of sweet spices and cocoa that marry well with its bright acidity and evolving tannins. Following through with red licorice, muddled strawberry and a mouth-watering finish, it perfectly summarizes the diverse flavors found on our Rutherford Estate and Oakville vineyards. This Cabernet Sauvignon is ready to be enjoyed now and will age gracefully over time.
Blend: 96% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Petit Verdot, 1% Malbec
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate comes from both Rutherford and Oakville, and it's another beautiful wine from this estate. Lots of pure cassis, assorted blue fruits, violets, and floral notes define the bouquet, and it's medium to full-bodied, with a pretty, elegant texture, supple tannins, and a great finish. Just classic, it’s an impeccably made Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon to drink over the coming 10-15 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Toasted oak aromas lead to good, ripe and focused blueberry and black cherry flavors in this full-bodied and moderately tannic wine. It has richness without fat, and spices up the dark fruits with black pepper and wisps of wood smoke.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Round Pond's 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate features scents of cherries, caramel and dark chocolate. Full-bodied and supple in feel, with some pleasantly grainy tannins and decent grip on the finish, it's a solid effort for near-term enjoyment.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.