I Brand and Family Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon Bates Ranch Vineyard 2022 SPRHONE fresh acidity

fresh acidity

The perpetual reserve gives it added complexity and roundness while the young fruit keeps it bright

Jean-Paul Jamet has been at the helm since 1976

Bi Fri is his white pét-nat: Sauvignon Blanc and the local Trebbiano Modenese

Tasted alongside the benchland's other classicists

I Brand and Family Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon Bates Ranch Vineyard 2022 SPRHONE fresh acidityBates Ranch sits at the far southern tip of the Santa Cruz Mountains, near Mount Madonna, planted in the early 1970s and dry farmed on a steep slope well above a thousand feet. It's a historic Cabernet site whose fruit went into some of the region's benchmark bottlings decades ago, and Ian Brand treats it with the seriousness it deserves. This is emphatically not valley floor Cabernet: no plush, no chocolate, no weight for weight's sake. Instead you