Winemaker Notes
Restraint over power is the goals while crafting this Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon. Saturated in color, it showcases aromas of briary blackberry, Satsuma plum and cassis. The aromas carry over on the palate, developing into black cherry, dark chocolate, and mocha flavors, with dense, plush tannins and a lengthy finish. This wine will age well for 5-15 years.
Blend: 92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
When a chef gets ready to create a meal, or a mixologist concocts a special cocktail, he or she preps ingredients ahead, and the term mis-en-place is used, meaning everything in its place. And besides that, this wine also succeeds from its sense of place: Oakville, with its diverse soils and reputation as being a premier location for grape-growing in Napa Valley. The wine, 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot, opens with daunting notes of charred cedar, blackberry, bittersweet dark chocolate, and umami. Silky tannins envelop the back of the palate, with cherrywood nnd fleshy purple fruit integrated into its powerful – yet luxurious – conformation.
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James Suckling
A well-balanced and moderately tannic cab from perhaps the most velvety AVA in Napa Valley. It offers black and blue fruit, cocoa and espresso accents on fine-grained tannins. Blueberries and bittersweet chocolate in the finish.
Textbook was inspired by the Pey Family's travels in France and Italy, where they learned about wine and its place at the table. While abroad, they fell in love with European craftsmanship – wines made with structure, restraint, and revealing a 'sense of place.' For nearly two decades, they've fulfilled that vision – crafting exceptional, while approachable wines that truly represents the best a region has to offer.
Their high-caliber grower and producer partners provide them with superior lots, allowing them to consistently deliver complexity and quality vintage to vintage.
Winemaker Abigail "Abi" Horstman Estrada sources small lots from a range of climates and soils, providing a diverse palette of flavors and aromatics. She honed her winemaking chops in Italy, New Zealand, and Israel and worked for prestige brands like Markham, Domaine Chandon, and Robert Mondavi in Napa Valley. She crafts Textbook wines by keeping the lots separate, tasting them throughout the year, and then integrating the components to create balanced, complex wines that can be enjoyed independently or with various cuisines.
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.
Home to some of the most sought-after Cabernet Sauvignon in America, Napa Valley’s Oakville district stretches across the center of Napa's valley floor and foothills between the Vaca and Mayacamas Mountains. This AVA is home to the legendary To Kalon Vineyard and Martha's Vineyard, as well as many powerhouse wineries including Screaming Eagle, Silver Oak, Robert Mondavi, Opus One, Far Niente and Groth.
The climate is generally warm and agreeable, resulting in year after year of favorable vintages. Summer days see a gentle tug of war between warmer inland air and the cool air coming in from the San Pablo Bay, creating an ideal environment to grow red varieties. Oakville's diverse soils, namely ancient sea bedrock, clay and gravel, are well-drained, and perfect for high-caliber viticulture.
Cabernet here is often bottled varietally but is also popular in Bordeaux Blends. Oakville wines are known for their silky, sensual textures, structured tannins, dark and brooding fruit and lovely aromatics. These age-worthy and prestigious wines are favored by collectors throughout the world.