2018 Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon
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The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is a gorgeous, totally sensual wine. Inky dark fruit, spice, leather and menthol build in the glass, with soft, plush contours that wrap it all together. This is an especially polished, sumptuous wine from Oakville Ranch, where the wines are often more brutish. The 2018 is just as brilliant today as it was from barrel. There is certainly terrific energy and verve here.
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Average Score
Jeb Dunnuck
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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While I wasn’t able to taste the 2017 from this estate, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon showed incredibly well, revealing a deep purple color as well as a gorgeous Bordeaux-like nose of blackcurrants, blackberries, lead pencil, graphite, and scorched earth. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, with fabulous purity of fruit, a layered, seamless texture, and the freshness and elegance that’s the hallmark of the 2018 vintage front and center, this is a thrilling Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon that will benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age and keep for 20-25 years or more.
Coming from Oakville Ranch vineyard, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville is a blend of 93% Cabernet Sauvignon and 7% Cabernet Franc. Deep garnet-purple colored, it soars from the glass with expressive scents of stewed plums, boysenberries, black raspberries and cassis, plus suggestions of wild thyme, forest floor, cedar chest and cinnamon stick with a waft of iron ore. The palate is elegantly styled with a medium body and tightly knit black and red fruit layers, supported by ripe, fine-grained tannins and fantastic tension, finishing long and minerally.
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon possesses off-the-charts intensity, richness and power. Inky blue/purplish fruit and soaring aromatics show tremendous depth and complexity for a young, embryonic wine at the beginning of its life. The 2018 is quite simply a thrilling wine. It is shaping up to the one of the finest - if not the finest - Cabernet I have ever tasted from Gallica and Rosemary Cakebread. Wow!