Cabernet rules this roost

One of LA’s most impressive wine cellars is behind this door.

Dinner with Carlitos and Alice means plowing through the finest classic Cabernet Sauvignon wines produced in Napa. You should know by now that tBoW is not a cab fan. As a good friend and winemaker once put it…Cabernet – a terrific blending grape.
On its own I find Cabernet Sauvignon to be too damn big. I recognize Napa makes what are probably the world’s best Cabernet wines (so sorry Bordeaux) BUT…I said BUT these are wines for either trophy hunters at worst and/or people with steel plated palates at best. There are few blended Cabernet wines that I find appealing. tBoW found the Argentina blends of Malbec and Cabernet were the least interesting from that region, preferring Malbec and Merlot or even Syrah. In California styles, the most appealing Napa red wines are less than half Cabernet and preferably that quantity is closer to 30%.
No matter. When Carlitos opens his wine cellar, people of the Cabernet persuasion sit up and take notice. Even I am impressed with the depth of his stash. (more…)