2018 Accendo Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is a beauty and comes from a mix of Vine Hill Ranch, Ecotone, MBar, and Sleeping Lady vineyards. Ripe blackcurrants, cassis, and mulled cherry fruits as well as subtle dark chocolate, graphite, violets, and tobacco define the aromatics, and it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, a deep, layered mid-palate, and building tannins that carry the finish. It shows the purity and freshness of the vintage yet brings some serious oomph as well. Give it a few years.
Critic scores
Average Score
Wine Spectator
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
More reviews and scores
A truly generous wine that balances red, black, and blue-toned fruits, interlaced with savoury baking spices and tobacco and possessing an earthy intensity. The fruit concentration is quite compact, and the wine is tightly knit with excellent mid-palate density and pixelated tannins framed by a coolness to the acid tension that runs through the centre of the wine. Lovely, refined, with electric freshness and a gorgeously floral finish. In this vintage, grapes sources are Sleeping Lady, Vine Hill Ranch and M-Bar. Cabernet Franc comes from Diamond Mountain, and Petit Verdot comes from Ecotone at the base of Howell Mountain. Accendo Cellars (produced at Wheeler Farms) is the second act of Bart and Daphne Araujo, who sold their iconic estate to the Pinault family, which now owns Eisele Vineyard. Today, second-generation partners Jaime and Greg Araujo are running the family business. (JC)
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is just as magnificent as it was last year. Dark, sensual and enveloping, the 2018 possesses off the charts intensity and fabulous balance. Black cherry, plum, chocolate, spice and licorice all build over time, but it is the wine's mind-blowing intensity and pedigree that are once again so alluring. The 2018 is quite simply regal. (AG)
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