Cabernet Sauv '18

Joel Burt and Eric Wareheim are the winemakers behind Las Jaras Wines. At Las Jaras, the goal is to make delicious wine that has tons of energy and balance. They want them to be vibrant, delicate, and supple all at the same time while also being food friendly and easy for anyone to enjoy. The wines are intended to reflect the unique terroir of the vineyards using minimal intervention so you can taste their natural, rhythmic expression. If you are not used to drinking wines made this way, the experience can be a revelation.

The lighter wines can elevate your daily experiences. Bring the elegant bubbles of our Sparkling Wine to your best friends engagement party. Nestle the Rosé into your backpack for a trip to the park to watch an epic sunset. Pair the chilled Glou Glou with a margherita pizza to make takeout tastier. 

Our dream when we started Las Jaras was to create an old-school Cabernet Sauvignon that harkened back to the Golden Age of California winemaking, the 1970s, before the era of “Big Flavor.” To achieve this, we had to find the perfect site: someplace with a low diurnal shift, where the daytime highs are warm but not scorching, and nights are reasonably warm.

We found our dream vineyard on Sonoma Mountain, a small, under-the-radar AVA that is better known for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay because of its relative coolness. But we knew Sonoma Mountain had the potential for beautiful, elegant, long-lived Cabernet Sauvignon, with no jammy flavors and plenty of fine-grained, supple tannins.

2018 is our fourth (and sadly) last vintage of the Sonoma Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, and it has vibrant aromas of blackberry and plum with subtle notes of oak, licorice, tar, and earth. On the palate you’ll find bright and intense boysenberry, blackberry, and crushed rock lined with cocoa and violets. Then on the midpalate, it’s all cocoa and cherry, with tannins that are a bit crunch now, but will soften over the next several years. This beauty will only improve over the next eight years, and will drink well far beyond that.