cabernets

But the key to understanding Mayacamas cabernets is to allow the wines to receive the bottle age that they both deserve and demand, as a top vintage of Mayacamas needs at least twenty years of cellaring to really begin to blossom and show of all of its magical depth and complexity.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

To give some idea of its longevity (and I now have tasted almost all of the top vintages of Mayacamas cabernets between the 1968 and 2003 vintages over the course of the last few years), even the inaugural vintage of 1968 continues to drink beautifully, and wines such as the 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1978 still have decades of life still ahead of them.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

While so many of its contemporaries who once shared the spotlight with Mayacamas have succumbed to the tides of fashion, Mayacamas continues to proudly maintain its heritage of producing long-lived, structured and classic mountain cabernets that seemingly offer little to a modern wine world scarred with impatience and the child-like need for immediate gratification.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

The 1991 is already a lovely drink with some decanting time, but given how great Mayacamas cabernets become with twenty-five odd years of bottle age, I would still be strongly inclined to hold off on drinking this fine 1991 for another eight to ten years.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

The Mayacamas cabernets are then bottled without fining, and aged an additional two years in bottle prior to release.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

I tried one of their cabernets a couple of years back …. definitely one that I pleasantly remembered.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

The newly acquired liquor cabinet in our house was now filled with the finest scotches, a wine rack in our living room housed with expensive cabernets and ports.

History of a Suicide Jill Bialosky 2011

The winemaking style here is quite old world in its methodology, with the yields in the vineyards kept quite low to allow the grapes to ripen without allowing the sugar levels to soar, so that Mayacamas cabernets retain some of the finest natural acidity of any red wines in California and rarely weigh in over thirteen percent natural alcohol.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010

The newly acquired liquor cabinet in our house was now filled with the finest scotches, a wine rack in our living room housed with expensive cabernets and ports.

History of a Suicide Jill Bialosky 2011

Tasting several vintages emphatically demonstrates the slight early herbaceousness of Mayacamas cabernets, which gives way in the fullness of time, with these early herbal tones of bell pepper and green peppercorn evolving into notes of tobacco leaf, earth and often a very distinct note of chipotle pepper that I also find in many mature vintages of La Mission Haut Brion.

Mayacamas - one of the greatest California Cabernets by John Gilman | Dr Vino's wine blog 2010