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95 WA.
"The 2016 Sugarloaf Vineyard is composed of 93% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc. Opaque ruby in color, it has a mineral-driven nose, offering aromas of graphite and pencil shavings with violet, bitter coffee, dark chocolate, cured meats, black plum and blackberry liqueur with a classy frame of new oak spice. Medium to full-bodied, it’s lush, rounded and silky in the mouth with savory, ripe fruits finely knit by grainy tannins, finishing long and lifted. 140 cases were made. Aperture completed a new winery in Healdsburg just in time for the 2019 vintage. The 20,000 square foot facility has all the bells and whistles a winemaker could want, including automated pump-over tanks and an optical sorter. “In 2017, you had to be meticulous with your sorting,” says winemaker Jesse Katz. “We had those incredible heat spikes. Even some of the rachises fried. And then, of course, there were the fires.” He notes that yields in 2017 were down and that fruit affected by fires or heat was bulked out. “You can make beautiful wines in a season like 2017,” Katz continues, “but only if you have the flexibility to heavily sort. The powerful, rich character of the 2017s also dictated that we leave them in barrel a little longer. So we used a lot of oxygen to begin and then moved to reductive methods, a classic technique I learned in Bordeaux—it’s what they do in challenging vintages. This is also the first time I did some light egg white fining.” Katz says that for him, aromas and textures are “the lifeline of wine,” and it’s certainly apparent in the glass. Across the board, the wines are intensely scented, layered and texturally stunning and represent some of the best Cabernets coming out of Sonoma County today." Erin Brooks, Wine Advocate Interim, Dec 2019 |