2018 Louis M. Martini, Stagecoach, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma Valley, Califor USA
Critics reviews
Brooding aromas – all liquorice, spice, cocoa, coffee and kirsch. The palate is equally reticent in terms of discernible, distinct flavours, but absolutely crammed with nuance. It grows in intensity to such a pitch you’re forced to spit or swallow for fear of an actual eruption. Beautiful power, barely tamed. The fruit quality and expression of place exceeds the boundaries of its winemaking and oak regime. This is a true monolith of a wine. Exciting but almost overwhelming.
Drink 2022 - 2045
Clare Tooley MW, Decanter.com (January 2022)
In the same ballpark, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Stagecoach Vineyard offers serious amounts of black fruits as well as notes of graphite, chocolate, and scorched earth. It has plenty of up-front oak, yet it’s medium to full-bodied, has rock-solid mid-palate depth, building tannins, and a great finish. Give it a few years and drink bottles over the following decade. This is one for those who like ripe, concentrated Cabernet.
Drink 2024 - 2034
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (May 2022)
About this WINE
Louis M. Martini Winery
Sonoma County
North Coast's Sonoma County is California's largest AVA with 19,800 ha (2005) of vines. It has forever been the home of the meek and mild small grower as compared to the grandeur and might of neighbour Napa; more picturesque too, as much of the sandy, gravely loam land belonged to true orchards and fruit farms until the 1970s.
Sonoma Valley covers a small part of Sonoma County but its wines often outshine its illustrious neighbours in Napa County. Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon are cultivated here with much success. Sonoma Valley has long enjoyed a special place in the history of California wine. The first vineyards in the valley were planted by Franciscan monks in 1823. In 1857 Agoston Haraszthy, one of the founding fathers of California's commercial winemaking, opened here the highly successful Buena Vista Winery.
Closer to the coast are the region's top producing AVAs for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay: Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Green Valley, while the slightly warmer Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys have earned a reputation as a hotspot for Cabernet, and increasingly, Zinfandel and Merlot.
Recommended producers
Ridge, Teira, Williams & Selyem, Rochioli are definitely worth investigating.
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.
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.
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Description
Brooding aromas – all liquorice, spice, cocoa, coffee and kirsch. The palate is equally reticent in terms of discernible, distinct flavours, but absolutely crammed with nuance. It grows in intensity to such a pitch you’re forced to spit or swallow for fear of an actual eruption. Beautiful power, barely tamed. The fruit quality and expression of place exceeds the boundaries of its winemaking and oak regime. This is a true monolith of a wine. Exciting but almost overwhelming.
Drink 2022 - 2045
Clare Tooley MW, Decanter.com (January 2022)
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