Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2017

The grapes for this Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon come from a selection of Cakebread Cellars Estate ranches and superior family-owned vineyards located throughout the valley’s finest Cabernet Sauvignon appellations. Long-term relationships with growers ensure an annual supply of top-quality fruit from diverse sites. This allows the crafting of a stylistically consistent and complex Cabernet marrying the lush black fruit and sturdy tannins typical of the valley’s warmer northern districts with the bright fruit and acidity characteristic of its cooler southern climates. Each individual lot of fruit was hand-harvested at night and cold‐soaked for two days prior to fermentation to foster early color, flavor and tannin extraction. The separate lots were then fermented and barrel aged before blending, with tank size, yeast strain, fermentation temperature and barrel type specifically tailored to the fruit character of each lot. In 2016, the component wines aged six months in French oak barrels, 56% new, before blending and the final blend spent another 17 months in barrel before bottling.