2019 Aperture Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Farrow Ranch Vineyard
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Entirely Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Farrow Ranch is inky in appearance and highly concentrated with layered aromas of pine sap, graphite, lavender oil, boysenberry liqueur, and menthol spice. Powerful on the palate, it delivers preserved blackberry, blue fruit, and sage oil, with sweet, refined tannins, and plushness and freshness underneath. A powerful style, it is worth all the decadence to hold at least a few years and drink 2026-2046. Jesse Katz and winemaker Hillary Sjolund are producing some of Sonoma's best examples of Bordeaux-inspired blends today. The wines offer hedonistic pleasure across the range, offering high-octane power balanced with superb elegance, and with their top reds have significant aging potential.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Erin Brooks, Wine Advocate
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The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Farrow Ranch is the inaugural release of a single-vineyard Cabernet from Farrow Ranch, where winemaker Jesse Katz has sourced fruit for his iconic Devil Proof Malbec for more than a decade. In August of 2021, he purchased the ranch and bottled this wine, which is composed of fruit from the two steepest blocks. Planted in the 1980s to Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc, Katz and his team took out some of the old vines and replanted other blocks, adding more Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and—excitingly—some Sémillon vines, totaling 80 acres. Matured for 22 months in 85% new French oak, the Farrow Ranch has a deep ruby color and explosive aromas of Morello cherries, coffee beans, chocolate, laurel and violet. The full-bodied palate is ripe and powerful with a singular, powdery texture, seamless lift and very classy baking spice accents. Graphite-like mineral character drives the finish and suggests this will unfold in bottle over the next 5-7+ years. 241 cases were made.