Rutherford Ranch Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

Tasting notes & discussion 22

Worried the Summer heat will get to your wine before it gets to you? Try our new Summer Hold option here!

Typically $85/bottle from Rutherford Ranch Winery
Vintage 2018 from Estate Vineyards, Napa Valley
Available for AL; AZ; AR; CA; CO; CT; DC; FL; GA; ID; IL; IN; IA; KS; KY; LA; ME; MD; MA; MI; MN; MO; MT; NE; NV; NH; NJ; NM; NY; NC; ND; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; VT; VA; WA; WV; WI; WY
Sold by participating winery or licensee, fulfilled by Wine Country Connect

About Rutherford Ranch Winery: “We are family-owned and managed, and for three generations our family has been committed to earth-friendly winegrowing. “Sustainable” viticulture is not only good for the environment, it results in higher quality fruit, a prerequisite for crafting world-class wines.”

Squatters Make The Best Critics

TASTING NOTES: “A dream bouquet of delicious black currants, integrated with sweet oak, and luscious cassis aromas. Well integrated oak and dark fruits to compliment a rich and velvety mouthfeel. Fine tannins create balance for a long, elegant finish.” (AbV 14.5%, pH 3.82, TA 0.60 (g/100mL))

VARIETALS: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14.4% Petit Verdot, 0.3% Malbec, 0.2% Merlot

BARRELS: 18 months in French and American oak

PAIRS WITH: an oven-roasted garlic crusted rack of lamb. Also delicious alongside a cheese board with gorgonzola, aged cheddar and gouda

THAT REMINDS ME OF: The Silverado Trail.

Not the wine road, for a second — the actual Silverado Trail. As in, the historic route that runs along the eastern edge of Napa Valley, named after the silver mines that drew prospectors through the region in the 1870s. As in, the same road that Robert Louis Stevenson — yes, Treasure Island Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Stevenson — traveled with his new wife in 1880, camping in an abandoned bunkhouse at the old Silverado Mine on Mount St. Helena and writing about the whole experience in The Silverado Squatters. The man who invented Long John Silver spent his honeymoon in a derelict mining shack in Napa Valley. Romantic in a very specific, nineteenth-century-tuberculosis-patient way.

What I find quietly delightful is that Stevenson was already famous by then — Treasure Island was being serialized in a children’s magazine — and he chose to spend his honeymoon roughing it in a California ghost town, eating canned goods and watching fog roll in over the valley. He wrote about the local wines, too, with genuine curiosity, predicting that Napa would one day rival the great wine regions of Europe. Which, Robert Louis, yes. Correct. Gold star. The man had range: pirates, werewolves, Victorian doubles, and apparently Napa Valley terroir discourse.

The bunkhouse is long gone, but the trail is still there, still running its quiet 29-mile length past vineyards that Stevenson would not recognize and probably would have a lot of feelings about.

ICYMI, you have two choices:

Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from the sale linked here, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year!
Want it shipped now? Every package during the summer will have protected temp control ground shipping for much of the country that takes longer but will ensure safe delivery. Expect up to two weeks for delivery. Now through the September 12th offer.

Who's buying this?

How are you buying your bottles?

How well do you know Robert Louis Stevenson beyond Treasure Island?

Treasure Island is honestly all I've got

Treasure Island is honestly all I've got
I've read Jekyll & Hyde too, that counts

I've read Jekyll & Hyde too, that counts
I've actually read The Silverado Squatters

I've actually read The Silverado Squatters
I'm pretty deep in the RLS rabbit hole

I'm pretty deep in the RLS rabbit hole
Tell us what you know in the comments

Tell us what you know in the comments

14 votes