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Intense yet elegant, with a bouquet of violet, rose petal, iron and roasted meat, crushed flowers, herbs and sweet pipe tobacco around a core of currant and crunchy red fruit, with soil-driven minerality and fine, rounded tannins.
Available in store
Close80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot
Food pairings: Roast leg of lamb, grilled steak, braised short ribs, duck, mushroom dishes and aged hard cheeses.
Scores:
Winemaking: The 2019 was hand harvested from September 27 to October 11 at about two tons per acre and fermented with native yeasts in small stainless steel tanks, with the cap punched down by hand and an extended maceration after fermentation. The wine finished malolactic fermentation in barrel and aged 22 months in French and American oak, half new and half one year old, racked three to four times a year, then bottled in July 2021 without fining or filtration and aged two years before release. The winery recommends decanting it in its early years; it will age for decades.
Vineyards and terroir: Mount Eden's estate Cabernet vines grow at about 1,600 feet on cool, east-facing slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains, just 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean, in austere, infertile Franciscan shale. Their heritage goes back to the 1890s, when viticulturist Emmett Rixford brought cuttings from Château Margaux to his La Questa Vineyard in Woodside; Martin Ray planted his first Cabernet from that vineyard in the late 1940s, and today's estate vines were propagated from those vines. The high, cool site gives refreshing acidity, moderate alcohol and characteristic flavors of red currant, blackberry and earth.
Family and history: The estate was founded by California wine pioneer Martin Ray, who bought the mountaintop above Saratoga in 1943 on the advice of his mentor Paul Masson. Renamed Mount Eden Vineyards in 1972, it is one of California's original boutique wineries. Jeffrey Patterson arrived in 1981, became winemaker in 1983 and guided the estate for more than four decades with his wife Ellie; the Patterson family became majority owners in 2008. Their son Reid is now general manager and Austin Chin became head winemaker in 2025.
In the pictures: The view from the Mount Eden estate above the fog; the Mount Eden wine cave, built in 1991; and the vineyard team at harvest (all courtesy of Mount Eden Vineyards).
