Cabanelas

The juicy, floral, fresh and balanced 2018 Cabanelas has old-vine concentration and depth and the freshness from the cooler year. This is a completely different wine from 2018, with a lot less oak, more integrated, balanced and fresh. It combines ripeness (14.5%) with freshness and elegance and comes through as complete and harmonious. This fermented in used barrels, 50% with full clusters that were foot trodden and the other 50% destemmed, followed by malolactic in new barrels, and then it matured in used 225-liter oak barrels for 12 months. I think there's still room for improvement in the use of oak. 1,200 bottles produced. It was bottled in March 2020.

Ripe and dense with blueberries, white pepper and hints of slate. I like the roundness and richness and the fresh, linear flow through the center palate. So much pepper at the end. Drink or hold.