Cabernet Sauvignon is America’s most important red grape. Nearly synonymous now with the Napa Valley, the grape was first made famous in Bordeaux. The grape tends to produce wines that are tannic, darkly colored and high in acidity; in climates like Bordeaux’s, where it can often be austere in its youth, Cabernet Sauvignon benefits from the company of soft, more-approachable Merlot. Learn by tasting by taking the The Climb for Cabernet trip.
Something about the California sunshine just seems to agree with Cab: Here, expressions of the grape can be luscious and generously fruited. While California Cabernet sometimes appears in blends (usually called “Meritage” blends), more often it’s bottled as a varietal wine. Whether California Cabernet tastes refined and herbal, or concentrated and jammy, or somewhere in between depends on the climate in which it’s grown and on the winemaking style. Supple, fruity wines may come from warmer climates, for example, and wines with a plush, concentrated texture may have seen more skin extraction during processing.
From warm, flat, sunny places like Oakville and Rutherford in Napa’s valley floor, Cab can be hedonistic and polished, with flavors of cola; from the cooler, high-elevation vineyards of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it can be savory and structured; from Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley, where a large diurnal shift and river-adjacent fog patterns characterize the climate, it can be rich and chocolatey.
Though Cabernets are among California’s priciest wines, they’re also usually its longest-lived. If you have the opportunity to taste Cabernets from reputable producers with a few decades of age on them, don’t pass it up. When they’re made well and stored properly, aged Cabernet can take on a potpourri of savory herb and flower characters, along with notes like leather, caramel and mocha. It’s one of the best examples of what the New World can do. –February 2017
Major California regions: Napa Valley and sub-AVAs, Alexander Valley, Sonoma Valley, Santa Cruz Mountains
Characteristic flavors: Olive, bay leaf, mint, cedar, currant, blackberry
Word to know: Meritage (rhymes with “heritage”). Meritage refers to a Bordeaux-style blend, usually based on Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, made in California. Joseph Phelps Insignia is a famous example.