2018 Peter Michael Les Pavots Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Blend, Knights Valley, California

The 2018 Peter Michael Les Pavots Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Blend comes from Peter Michael’s oldest estate vineyard, planted between 1989 and 1999 on the slopes of Mount Saint Helena in Knights Valley. The 49-acre site rises from 1,000 to nearly 1,400 feet and is planted in rocky, volcanic-origin rhyolite soils, with the cooler upper slopes dedicated to Merlot and Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot growing lower on the hillside. The 2018 vintage produced a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon; 19% Cabernet Franc; 10% Merlot; 3% Petit Verdot, giving the wine the structure of Cabernet with the aromatic lift and complexity of the other Bordeaux varieties. 

The fruit was hand-harvested from October 18–26, then the wine was aged for 18 months in 100% French oak from selected artisan coopers and bottled unfined and unfiltered. The result is a full-bodied, structured wine with blueberry, boysenberry and blackberry alongside violet, wild herbs, crushed stone, tobacco, cigar box, cedar and black pepper. The 2018 received 97 points from Jeb Dunnuck and James Suckling, 96 from Wine Advocate and Vinous, and 93 from Wine Spectator, making it one of the more highly recognized vintages of Les Pavots.