2022 Cabernet Sauvignon
The 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon marks our 17th vintage crafting Cabernet from the Frankel Family Estate. Primarily sourced from the Hillside “Autopista” block, this wine is dramatic, focused on red fruit tones, layered oak and age worthy tannins. Gorgeous, dense oak spices are interwoven and complex; layered and beautifully bouquets are subtle, showing wood smoke, toast and campfire taste. The fruity aromas bounce around with chocolate cherry, blackberries and cocoa bean. It leans toward being full-bodied and well-integrated tannins provide pronounced structure for further aging. Overall, this Cabernet wines is gently powerful with profound, dark and delicious red fruits, offering concentrated black cherries, black currants, licorice on a dry-puckering fine grain tannic finish. This wine will only improve with age, tasting at it’s very best from years 2025 – 2035.
This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wine is a blend of three estate vineyards; harvested independently of one another and kept separate the entire time of aging until we bottled in May 2024. The fruit was mechanically harvested at night using a brand OXBO grape harvester. This machine has optical sorting technology and sorted leaves, stems, canes and eliminated them from making it into the picking bins. We lightly crushed the grapes once they arrived at the winery, followed by a 2-day cold soak at a chilling 55 degrees. We added yeast and conducted three pump-overs daily. Fermentation took one month to complete. Then, we drained the “free run” wine and pressed the skins at low psi. For the hilltop Cab portion of this wine, we elected to use twelve brand-new, 225L Hungarian barrels from TRUST company. These barrels are specifically designed for high quality Cabernet wines and are part of the “Cabernet Collective,” barrel program. These Hungarian barrels add taste of pencil-shavings, caramel candy, marshmallow and cut cedar. Puerta Electrica aged in 500L large format barrels and the small amount of Bentley Cab aged in a portion of new American Oak barrels from Demptos Cooperage.
| Download Wine Notes |
| Vintage | 2021 |
| Varietal | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| Varietal Composition | 100% Cabernet Sauvignon |
| Appellation | Paso Robles |
| Vineyard | Frankel Family Estate |
| Acid | 0.67 g/100 ml |
| PH | 3.59 |
| Residual Sugar | 0.05 g/100 ml |
| Alcohol | 14.00% |
| Volume | 750 ml |
| Bottling Date | 05/17/2023 |
| Cases Produced | 1,200 |
Cabernet Sauvignon is the “bread and butter” of Sculpterra Winery! Year after year our Estate Grown Cabernet proves to be the steadiest, most reliable, and most refined wine we offer. The blend of these three Cabernet vineyards adds to the authenticity of this wine. This is a “Cab lovers” wine, offering big structure, dark fruits, and a hefty, lengthy dry finish. The vines were planted way back in 1993 and our own rooted; we took vine cuttings from a neighbor, and then propagating them in our own nursery before transplanting the young plants into our new vineyards. It’s Cabernet Sauvignon Clone Number 7, a famous clone in the Paso Robles area. The flavors have come into pure harmony as the vines have aged, resulting in consistent taste and unique quality. 2022 was a super challenging growing season, one that we will NEVER forget! Incredible heat spikes in the summer and fall sped up the harvest. Then it rained during harvest, forcing us to bring in the grapes before problems could occur in the vineyard. Our vineyard team stepped up to these challenges and this vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon will go down as one of our very best.
