Hot cedar, toasted vanilla, leather, tobacco on the nose. Dried blackberries, molasses, smoked vanilla, burnt oak. Bitter chocolate, cloves. Lingering finish. Firm, but not overpowering tannin.
Tasted Feb. 2016

Ya, I mean this hits all notes - structured and flavourfull - well done! Cab fans like my father will love this wine, especially for the price. Bravo!

Here's a high-value California Cab that really delivers. Benefitting from a moderate climate that keeps Californian excess in check, it offers immensely inviting fruit-forward aromas of cassis, blackberry, blueberry, and dark cherry -- ripe, plump fruit nicely complemented by pine, cinnamon, and fresh wood, the oak present but not obtrusive. This complexity gives way to more of an oaky muddle through the mid-palate, and bitter, chalky tannins take hold after that through the finish, but there's sufficient acidity to prop things up with vibrancy. Really good now, but could use 1-2 more years.

More Bordeaux-like than Californian, though one hates to brush California with the same raspberry-mocha-sugar brush given the wide array of wines from the Golden state (most of which we don't see here). This Cab is too young to be enjoyed now, with very tight tannin and some oak that needs integration. Also, some bitterness on the finish. Some nice savoury flavours are here, but the wine needs time to mellow. Hold until 2019. Tasted Apr 2017.