Cakebread Dancing Bear Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 750ml

The top Cabernet is the 2017 Cakebread Dancing Bear Ranch which comes all from the Howell Mountain AVA. It’s another inky colored beauty boasting a terrific perfume of black and blue fruits, ground herbs, spice box, graphite, and forest floor.

Aromas of boysenberry, black cherry, and fig with accents of forest floor are highlighted in the 2017 vintage. On the palate, intense, concentrated flavors of blackberry, black cherry and boysenberry are balanced by traces of minerality and opulent tannins with a dense, powerful black fruit finish.

Beautifully balanced and structured this intense, complex mountain wine will continue to unfold in the bottle for the next decade. Enjoy with rosemary braised lamb shanks, filet mignon, or grilled portabello mushrooms.

With brilliant minerality on the palate as well as full-bodied richness and an expansive, opulent texture, it has sweet tannins and is approachable today, yet will benefit from short-term cellaring and cruise for 25-30 years. It’s one of the few 2017s to come close to its 2016 counterpart.

Bottled only three weeks ago, the 2017 Cakebread Dancing Bear Ranch is composed of 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 1% Merlot, having spent 22 months in 60% new French oak.

Very deep garnet-purple in color, it reveals beautiful notions of kirsch, red and black currant preserves, raspberry pie and warm plums with hints of red roses, stewed tea, underbrush and cinnamon stick.

Medium-bodied, the palate has wonderful red fruit and floral intensity intermingled with black fruits, framed by firm, grainy tannins and a wicked backbone of freshness, finishing very long and mineral laced. Very different from the epic 2016 Dancing Bear, but very exciting!