2018 Eisele Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California, USA

2018 Eisele Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California, USA

Product: 20188115939
Prices start from £442.00 per bottle (75cl). Buying options
2018 Eisele Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California, USA

Buying options

Available for delivery or collection. Pricing includes duty and VAT.

Description

The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is another brilliant wine from this estate. Lots of smoky currants, tobacco, graphite, and spicy notes define the aromatics, and it’s concentrated and layered on the palate, with beautiful yet building tannins as well as a crushed rock-like sense of minerality. I love its mid-palate depth, it’s flawlessly balanced, and it has a great finish. It shows the seamless, incredibly layered style that this terroir always seems to yield, and while it’s beautiful today, 3-5 years of bottle age are warranted.

Drink 2027 - 2057

Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (December 2023)

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Critics reviews

Jancis Robinson MW18/20

100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Made entirely from the alluvial fan laid down by Simmons Creek in what the team considers the heart of the Eisele vineyard. Certified organic by CCOF and biodynamic by Demeter. Released June 2021.

Currently in an introspective phase. Wait a few more years before opening to allow the wine to become naturally more expressiveness. Notes of pink and white grapefruit, cocoa nib, plum skin, graphite and cracked pine emerge with air. There is a very good architectural focus on the vintage, with balance and a lot of length. The details are still coming into view, but everything is here for a beautiful wine. Nice freshness, a lot of persistence: fine-grained tannin balanced with mouth-watering acidity for a lot of length. Leave it patiently in the cellar before opening it for a lovely vintage. 

Drink 2028 - 2055

Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (December 2022)

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Wine Advocate99/100

The very deep, purple-black coloured 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. It takes a fair amount of swirling to unlock an incredibly intense nose of dark chocolate, warm cassis, baked plums and Morello cherries, plus touches of red roses, violets, pencil shavings, cinnamon stick and dusty soil with a hint of iron ore. The full-bodied palate is so exquisitely elegant, charged with electric black and red fruits and a firm frame of super-ripe, grainy tannins and bold freshness, finishing very long and very perfumed. This is pure energy in a glass!

Drink 2024 - 2058

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate (November 2020)

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James Suckling99/100

Blackberry, dried blueberry, bitter chocolate and some volcanic ash and burnt-orange aromas. Crushed stone and subtle vanilla notes, too. It’s full-bodied with firm, chewy tannins framing a deep core of dark fruit. Dense, muscular and firmly structured. So long. Goes on for minutes. Elegance with power. I really love the beautiful refinement and integrity of this. Captures the essence of the vintage.

Try from 2025

James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (January 2021)

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Jeb Dunnuck98+/100

The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is another brilliant wine from this estate. Lots of smoky currants, tobacco, graphite, and spicy notes define the aromatics, and it’s concentrated and layered on the palate, with beautiful yet building tannins as well as a crushed rock-like sense of minerality. I love its mid-palate depth, it’s flawlessly balanced, and it has a great finish. It shows the seamless, incredibly layered style that this terroir always seems to yield, and while it’s beautiful today, 3-5 years of bottle age are warranted.

Drink 2027 - 2057

Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (December 2023)

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About this WINE

Eisele Vineyard

Eisele Vineyard

Eisele Vineyard, nestled in the heart of Napa Valley’s Calistoga AVA, has a history of viticulture that dates back to the 1880s, making it one of the region’s most historically significant sites. The vineyard is best known for its Cabernet Sauvignon, grown on well-drained alluvial soils that contribute to the wine’s structure and longevity. The site also produces small quantities of Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc, all of which reflect the unique characteristics of the terroir.

Ownership of Eisele Vineyard has changed hands several times, with the Pinault family of Château Latour acquiring it in 2013. Under their stewardship, the vineyard transitioned fully to biodynamic farming, enhancing soil health and vineyard longevity. Eisele Vineyard was among the first in Napa Valley to experiment with organic agriculture, beginning in the late 1990s, setting a benchmark for sustainable viticulture in the region.

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Napa Valley

Napa Valley

North Coast's Napa Valley is California's most famous viticultural area (AVA), claiming some of the most expensive agricultural land in the world and producing wines of ‘cult’ status.

Its 16,000 ha of vines lie over a strip (40 miles long-5 miles wide) of diverse soils (clay, gravely, volcanic), with its northernmost end on the side of Mountain Helena and its foot in San Francisco Bay. The valley is framed by two mountains ranges Vaca (to the north) and Mayacamas (to the south), yet the main climatic influence is the cool wind and fog that is sucked in from San Pablo Bay during the afternoon, allowing grapes to ripen slowly and evenly. 

The area enjoys a variety of unique microclimates, as temperatures can vary dramatically as much as 15 degrees, from the north to the south end of the valley. These differences have led to the creation of several sub-AVAs (14 in total) including:

Atlas Peak, Chiles Valley District, Diamond Mountain District, Howell Mountain, Los Carneros, Mt. Veeder, Oakville, Rutherford, St. Helena, Spring Mountain District, Stags Leap District, Yountville, Wild Horse Valley and Oak Knoll District. The Calistoga AVA is still pending approval.

Both the “Napa Valley” designation and the sub-AVA name must appear on the wine label simultaneously, with the exception of wines from the Carneros AVA, which is shared between the Napa Valley and the Sonoma County.

Cabernet Sauvignon is the undisputed king of Napa grapes, occupying over 45% of the vineyard acreage, followed by (predominantly) Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Zinfandel, Merlot, Cab. Franc and to a lesser extent Petite Sirah, Sangiovese, Barbera, Dolcetto.

Recommended Producers
Frog's Leap, Dominus, David Ramey, Viader, Stag's Leap Cellars, Paras Vineyards, Heitz.

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Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon

The most famous red wine grape in the world and one of the most widely planted.

It is adaptable to a wide range of soils, although it performs particularly well on well-drained, low-fertile soils. It has small, dusty, black-blue berries with thick skins that produce deeply coloured, full-bodied wines with notable tannins. Its spiritual home is the Médoc and Graves regions of Bordeaux where it thrives on the well-drained gravel-rich soils producing tannic wines with piercing blackcurrant fruits that develop complex cedarwood and cigar box nuances when fully mature.

The grape is widely planted in California where Cabernet Sauvignon based wines are distinguished by their rich mixture of cassis, mint, eucalyptus and vanilla oak. It is planted across Australia and with particular success in Coonawarra where it is suited to the famed Terra Rossa soil. In Italy barrique aged Cabernet Sauvignon is a key component in Super Tuscans such as Tignanello and Sassicaia, either on its own or as part of a blend with Sangiovese.

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When is a wine ready to drink?

We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.

Not ready

These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.

Ready - youthful

These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.

Ready - at best

These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.

Ready - mature

These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.