Drink now or cellar for up to 14 years. Decant 1 hour before serving. Jake Cakebread came to a friend’s property in Napa Valley to photograph the area for a book in the 1970s. He fell in love with the place and returned the next day to purchase the property which later became Cakebread Cellars. Today seven members of the family are involved in running the estate which has some 225 hectares of vines spread across 13 different vineyard sites. Cakebread has built a global reputation for their premium Napa wines which express the quality of the local terroir and the family’s winemaking skill and expertise. For this punchy Cabernet head winemaker Stephanie Jacobs selects top quality grapes from Rutherford and Oakville for plenty of intense Napa fruit character. This is blended with grapes from the warmer Calistoga appellation to the north and the cooler southern Suscol watershed, helping to create a complex snapshot of Napa’s diverse microclimates and soils. To preserve delicate aromatics and the natural purity of the grapes they are harvested in the cool of night and sorted by hand in the winery. The fruit is then cold soaked to extract plenty of colour and tannins. Following vinification the young wine is then aged in French oak barrels for 17 months before Stephanie makes the final blend. The result is a powerful, full bodied Cabernet that’s bursting with cassis, blackberry, dark cherry, chocolate and coffee notes with firm tannins and a long, structured finish.