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Single Bottle - Standard - 750ml
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Tasting Notes:
A brooding red, with plenty of smoky and Asian spice notes to the dark plum and roasted cherry flavors. Hints of dried meat on the finish are supported by muscular tannins. Drink now. 800 cases made.
Tasting Notes:
VINTAGES DON'T MATCH --- The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Owen's Vineyard comes from the parral also used for the Cabernet Sauvignon Reservado. They didn't have a Cabernet in the single-vineyard line so added this one from an 80-year-old plot in Agrelo that produces very good grapes that were traditionally sold to Catena where Bernardo Bonilla, the winemaker, used to work. Cabernet usually ripens later than Malbec, and Bernardo likes Cabernet with red fruit, but does not dislike the herbal aromas traditionally linked to the variety, and this has them all. The complex nose also has aromas of blond tobacco, black pepper, vanilla and smoke. The palate reveals a serious wine, that is quite oaky and has ripe, charred flavors that should better integrate with time in bottle. The 2014 and 2015 vintages have been somewhat difficult. As Bernardo Bonilla - Casarena's winemaker - told me, you have to unearth your winemaking books. They had rain in February and people who didn't harvest early lost the crop. So, from his point of view, those two harvests will change the profile of most of the wines forever, because by being forced to harvest early they produced fresher wines, wines that are more drinkable and better accepted by the market. The market wants fresher wines and this might change the mentality of many of the larger producers who used to wait and harvest very late and ripe; in 2014 and 2015, if you waited, the grapes rotted. Bonilla is lowering the alcoholic degree of most wines and is fermenting the reds in the barrel room - the single-vineyard ones that are smaller lots - to avoid over extracting and obtaining too tannic wines with harsh textures so often found in other wineries. The change is more noticeable in the younger wines, in the entry-level 505 range, as I tasted the just-bottled 2015s. They have also eschewed inner staves in favor of well-seasoned oak barrels. A name in evolution.
