2019 Vineyard 29 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon 29 Estate, 100% Cabernet, shows just how special this site in northern St. Helena planted in 1989 with Grace clone Cabernet is. Copious blackberry jam, espresso, chocolate, licorice and cloves saturate the palate. Readers will find a truly distinctive Cabernet built on aromatic intensity, huge fruit and equally potent tannins. Give it a few years to soften.

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon 29 Estate, from the original vineyard on an east-facing slope just north of the town of St. Helena, is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged in 85% new French oak. It's less opulent and more classically styled than the Aida, with hints of thyme, sage and bay leaf lacing through cassis and blackberries. Full-bodied, with fine-grained tannins—but plenty of them—it's both mouth filling and mouth-drying, with a long, gently dusty finish. Again, it could use some time in the cellar, and then it will drink well for two decades or more.