CALI CABS OF A DIFFERENT DIMENSION

California Cabernet Sauvignon has a reputation problem — not because the wines are bad, but because the playbook got tired. Over-extracted juice aged 24 to 36 months in brand new American oak, wrapped in cult marketing and a three-digit price tag: we've seen that project enough times to know it's not a discovery, it's a template — and frankly, it's boring. The prominence of the region is at stake when the formula crowds out the farming. The producers in this week's selection are reading from a different book — one that European winemakers and the best producers in Chile, Argentina, and South Africa have long understood: terroir and technique have to balance each other, or one of them wins at the expense of the wine. These four bottles span Napa Valley, Paso Robles, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Mt. Veeder, connected not by appellation but by a shared refusal to let production muscle out the site.

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Maximal Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2023 

Maximal is a new label born from a specific moment: the 2020 fires that reshaped Westwood Estates' Sonoma holdings prompted founder Carl Stanton to pivot deliberately toward Napa Cabernet. Rather than reinvent the wheel, he brought in Atelier Melka — the consulting firm led by Philippe Melka and director of winemaking Maayan Koschitzky. Melka earned his credentials at Château Haut-Brion in Bordeaux before arriving in Napa in 1991 as an intern with Christian Moueix at Dominus. Wine Advocate has named Atelier Melka among the top ten winemaking teams in the world, with multiple 100-point scores across their portfolio of client wines. For Maximal, all sourcing is certified organic and biodynamic — a standard Westwood committed to across its program in 2015. The winemaking is minimal intervention by intent. The 2023 opens with mulberry, lavender, dark soil, graphite, and espresso, with cassis and raspberry mousse on the palate. Tannins are lightly grained and medium-weight, finishing dusty and dry with a long fade.

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Hall Wines Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021

The Halls have been building toward this kind of Cabernet since 1995, when they acquired the Rutherford Sacrashe Vineyard — a hilltop site on the Vaca Mountain Range with distinctive volcanic ash (tuff) soils, yields capped at three tons per acre by the terrain, and small concentrated berries as a result. The St. Helena Bergfeld Winery followed in 2003, anchoring the operation at a site that once housed the Napa Valley Co-Op and produced 40% of the valley's wine output. By 2009, Hall was California's first LEED Gold Certified winery. Today, 500+ acres span 12 of Napa's 16 AVAs — ancient alluvial riverbeds, hilltop volcanic soils, benchland sites — managed block by block with certified organic farming. Current Director of Winemaking Megan Gunderson uses wild-yeast fermentation, gravity-flow production, and optical sorting to build this Napa Valley blend. The wine is deep garnet with dried fig, blackcurrant, black pepper, wet gravel, and dried basil on the nose. Blackberry preserves, tobacco, anise, cocoa, and nutmeg coat the palate. Full-bodied, chewy, and round with a long smooth finish.

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Austin Hope Cabernet Sauvignon Paso Robles 2023

Austin Hope is a third-generation farmer whose parents Chuck and Marlyn planted their first Paso Robles vines in 1978. The family later helped establish the Paso Robles AVA in 1983, and in 2007 Austin joined fellow winemakers in petitioning the federal government for 11 new sub-AVAs — a process that concluded in 2014. His namesake Cabernet launched with the 2015 vintage and immediately scored 97 points from Wine Enthusiast, the publication's highest-ever rating for a Paso Robles wine. Successive vintages — 2017 and 2018 — both landed in Wine Enthusiast's Top 10 Wines of the World. The fruit is sourced from the Creston and Estrella Districts, east of the Salinas River, where ancient flood plain soils — broken-down calcareous stone, disintegrated bedrock, gravel, and alluvial loam — sit at 745 to 2,000 feet elevation. Creston's growing season diurnal swing averages 25–40°F; Estrella runs 35–40°F. These dramatic temperature drops between day and night preserve acidity and build phenolic structure. The 2023 delivers dark fruit, vanilla bean, and coffee on the nose, with black pepper, baking spice, and tobacco adding dimension on the palate.

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Ceritas Wines Cabernet Sauvignon Colima California 2022

Ceritas occupies a singular position in California wine: a cult-status producer whose Cabernet program is deliberately understated and built from sites most Cab drinkers have never heard of. John Raytek spent time at Flowers, Copain, and Rhys — including helping establish Rhys's Alpine and Home estate vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains — before founding Ceritas in 2005 with his wife Phoebe Bass, who grew up farming her family's Porter-Bass biodynamic vineyard near Guerneville. Colima is the multi-vineyard entry into the Ceritas Cabernet program, blending three organically farmed, high-elevation sites: Peter Martin Ray at 1,800 feet on Franciscan shale with virtually no topsoil (one ridge south of Ridge Monte Bello), Paratus on Mt. Veeder from 50-year-old vines on volcanic soils that historically contributed fruit to Mayacamas, and Black Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains. All three sites exceed 1,200 feet. Winemaking is native yeast in concrete with gentle extraction, then 27 months in 40% new French oak. At 13% abv, the wine sits firmly in restrained territory for California Cab — lifted, mineral-driven, structured, and built for the table rather than the tasting room.