Venge Cabernet Sauvignon Family Reserve 2018, Oakville, Napa Valley, California

Our 2018 Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is a powerhouse effort from our Oakville Estate Vineyard. This wine features beautiful dark red and purple hue that clings to the glass. The aromatics are plush and highly perfumed with ripe black cherries, clove, cinnamon, blackberries and currants. The palate is full and expansive. There is no pocket of the mouth unfilled or escaping this wine’s sumptuous composition. The flavors captured in this Cabernet wash over the front and through to the back of the palate for over two minutes past the initial impressions. Anticipated maturity is 2024 to 2039.
The 2018 was a hot vintage that saw a small fruit set due to continued drought. The natural ‘culling’ of the fruit set let to reduced yields and a stellar crop. Now in their 31st year, we continue to sustainably ‘dry farm’ these vines by not allowing them any applied summer irrigation. Their roots must find water on their own and struggle in the final months of summer and early fall leading to a complexity and depth of flavor often unequaled in irrigated vineyards. The fruit was destemmed into a combination of small stainless-steel tank fermenters, concrete vats, and open top barriques. Time on skins lasted 14 to 45 days. The fruit was then separated to ‘free run’ and ‘light press’ fractions. The Cabernet was aged in 100% new, tight grained, French Oak barrels for a lengthy 27 months. 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.