2018 Cardinale Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
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S$42297
Vintage : 2018
Region : Napa Valley
Country: USA
Winemaker Notes
This year, the tools include seven appellations and 32 individual wine lots. With the right vision, Cardinale crafted the finished piece – 2018 Cardinale. Super structured and with minerality to spare, this Cabernet Sauvignon offers a real presence on the palate from start to finish. Generous notes of dark chocolate balance beautifully with a blue and black fruit flavor explosion, finishing with a subtle whisper of rose petal.
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot
About Winery
In 1983, Jess Jackson, proprietor of Kendall-Jackson Winery, decided to produce a world-class red Meritage wine. The name comes from the original Cardinale vineyard site at Kendall-Jackson's Lakeport winery. The wine is made predominantly of Cabernet Sauvignon blended with small amounts of Merlot and, in certain years, Cabernet Franc. Grapes are harvested from hillside vineyards located in both Napa Valley and Sonoma County. The wine is aged in 100% new French oak Chateau barrels to produce a forward, seamless oak character to match its intense fruit.
Cardinale was born in 1982, with a mission to produce a singular Cabernet Sauvignon from the highest-quality vineyards in Napa Valley. All sub-appellations of the region were to be considered, and grape sources could change from year to year, to create the most distinctive wine from each vintage.
Cardinale offers the same winning combination in vinous form: a brilliant ensemble of celebrated Napa Valley vineyards where each brings its own personality and flavor contributions to create a singular storyline of their vintage. This year, the tools include seven appellations and 32 individual wine lots. With the right vision, we crafted the finished piece – 2018 Cardinale. Super structured and with minerality to spare, this Cabernet Sauvignon offers a real presence on the palate from start to finish. Generous notes of dark chocolate balance beautifully with a blue and black fruit flavor explosion, finishing with a subtle whisper of rose petal.
CHRISTOPHER CARPENTER
Winemaker
90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot
98 points Jeb Dunnuck
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is based on a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot that spent 22 months in 81% new French oak. It’s a wonderfully complete, borderline perfect wine that shows the class of this estate as well as the vintage, revealing a seamless, full-bodied style that carries lots of blackcurrant, graphite, lead pencil, and tobacco aromatics, a deep, layered mid-palate, ultra-fine tannins, and flawless balance. As with most of Chris’s 2018s, it’s a wine that builds slowly with time in the glass, offering a layered, singular character. It’s a gorgeous 2018 that can be drunk today with ample pleasure, but it will ideally be given 4-6 years of bottle age, at which point it should evolve gracefully for 30-40 years. 98+ (1/2021)
98 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Composed of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot, the 2018 Cardinale was aged in French oak barrels for 22 months, 81% new. Deep garnet-purple colored, it prances out of the glass with gregarious notions of warm cassis, black cherries and wild blueberries, followed by emerging earth scents with a tobacco and garrigue undercurrent. Medium to full-bodied, gracefully styled and refreshing, the vibrant black and blue-fruited palate offers a wonderfully fine-grained texture and bags of energy, finishing long with a skip in its step. (LPB) (1/2021)
