Lot 948 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Lot 948 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet, we’ll cut right to the chase with our black label release – it’s got everything you want from a Napa Cab: pedigree, vintage, aged in bottle, and the ability to cellar this wine still for years to come. This wine hails from the 2018 vintage (which critics have praised as one of the best in the last 40 years). But listen: Forget the critics. Forget that the source winery is an iconic estate founded in 1995. Forget that they sourced grapes from vineyards near $200+ Peter Michael Winery in Knights Valley or the Rutherford Hills above Michelin-starred Auberge du Soleil.
Just pull the cork, pour into a big Bordeaux wine glass, swirl, and stick your nose in the glass—it’s immediately ravishing, elegant, and exceptional. It reminds us of drinking triple-digit icon wines from estates in the western-facing hills of the Vaca Mountains above Rutherford and Oakville (we’re talking Hall and Alpha Omega territory!). Still, this isn’t an overblown, super heavy, inky-rich Napa Cabernet. Lot 948 is all about understated elegance, which is exactly what we’d expect from the source winery. It’s wild that we got our hands on this one. We highly recommend decanting Lot 948 because it will be tight after opening, but with some air—wow.
The tasting notes on this wine are incredible. Brambly red and blackberry fruits, toasty fennel, graphite, and cedarwood. Almost buoyant, the tannins are featherweight with a satiny-smooth texture. Tobacco nuances are lifted by river stone minerality. The subtlest notes of vanilla and baking spices round out the finish. Is it a sleeper wine? Sure is. So stock up and enjoy some this Fall, next Fall, and the next Fall, etc… you won’t be disappointed!
Watch as Nicole Muscari, your Pocket Wine Advisor, and Wanda Mann, Wine Writer and Educator, walk us through a tasting and discuss this exciting release.
Tasting Video Highlights:
00:00 Intro
00:19 Lot 948 Basics
00:48 The Pour
01:06 The Color
01:23 Ageability
01:59 Napa Cab Sauv
02:28 2018 Vintage
03:05 On the Nose
04:12 The Palate
04:58 Pairing
05:51 Conclusion
Tasting Video Transcript:
Wanda says
Hello, Wanda Mann here in the CH Wine tasting room. And I’m joined by our Marvelous Pocket Wine Advisor, Nicole Muscari.Nicole says
Thank you for that introduction, fancy.Wanda
Thanks for being here with me. So what do we have in this bottle to.Nicole
Have a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? This is Lot 948. It’s from 2018. Fantastic. Vintage. Another fantastic.Wanda
Vintage. Yeah. I’ve been hearing from the winemakers. The rumor through the grapevine is 2018 was excellent.Nicole
That’s what they say. And there’s only 600 cases produced of this wine. So we are really lucky to be able to taste this together today.Wanda
Absolutely. And I think that’s one of the things the wine does so well. Special wines, quality wines, limited production. So you’re not going to see these wines everywhere. So definitely, if you’re trying to impress with the upcoming holiday season, this is something I think that will really dazzle your guests.Nicole
Absolutely. 2018. Five years already of aging on this wine. So I’m really excited to kind of look at the color and see if we could pick up a little bit of that aging.Wanda
Yeah, definitely. You know, it’s a beautiful color, a little more subdued. Like, it’s not that shimmering new vintage right into it, right?Nicole
Yes. It has more of a brick appearance. And I think just around the rim there, it’s it’s going a little bit more like brick, which is just showing a little bit of age. I think this wine I mean, I haven’t had it yet, but it could probably go for quite a long time.Wanda
I’m thinking so, especially given that 2018 when we talk about a good vintage, that means that the wine will have good acidity, good structure, good tannins, great fruit, Right. To declare a great vintage.Nicole
Absolutely. And I think that’s the number one question that I’m always getting asked by new wine drinkers is how do I know how long to hold on to a wine for? And I always say it’s like building a new house. You need to have a solid foundation for the house to really stand the test of time. And the same thing goes for wine, right?Nicole
So the foundation here is going to be that acidity, that tannin and that fruit concentration. And those are all things that we find in these Napa Valley Cab Sauvs is true.Wanda
You know, even though Cabernet has grown around the world, there is a reason why Napa has become the standout, the benchmark for quality for Cabernet Sauvignon, because there isn’t a monolith, right? There’s quality, but different vintages, different ways of expressing the essence of the grape. So I’m really excited to get into this 2018.Nicole
Yes, absolutely. I mean, every vintage tells its own story, and I think that’s also really fun when you have a couple of these bottles and you visit them at a later date, you’re kind of drinking the story of that year, also the story of that place and the person who made it, which is also something I just love about wine.Wanda
Exac. I’m so glad that you reinforced that. You know that the year isn’t just about the year that the grape was harvested. It is that snapshot of the season and how many things in life can we experience something in that way where you can taste the season?Nicole
Yeah, absolutely. And every time I look at a vintage oh 2018, what was I doing in 2018?Wanda
And that’s true, That’s.Nicole
True that when these grapes were on the vine.Wanda
So we give it a smell.Nicole
Oh, we should I can smell it from here.Wanda
I know. It’s very aromatic.Nicole
Oh, those are some concentrated deep berries, forest berries, black plum, blackberry.Wanda
And I love there’s an herbaceous character with that rich fruit. I love it when that quality is there, because then I know it’s not just going to be a fruit bomb.Nicole
Exactly. I like.Wanda
Those New York City.Nicole
Complex. A little bit of capsicum or red bell pepper here, just some spice that also adds to that notion of freshness. I also think that there’s, you know, some baking spice, sweet spice, a little bit of cigar box and maybe some leather and tobacco, just really kind of some from the oak and some just from a little bit of aging that’s just really adding to the layers and the depth of the wine.Wanda
Yeah, I think being a 2018 at five years old now, we still have some of that freshness, but that those tertiary flavors are starting to manifest themselves and it makes this really a much more interesting drinking experience. And I think sometimes for new wine drinkers, the concept of aging is hard to grasp. Yes, absolutely. Like why we geek out about it so much.Nicole
So we get to that.Wanda
Let’s get to it. Oh, nice.Nicole
That is beautiful.Wanda
It is the acidity right here.Nicole
Yeah, I can feel it.Wanda
You know, super fresh.Nicole
All of those notes, I think, really carry through here. I am picking up on a really beautiful bright purple flower as well. But I think that this is just fantastic because you have that concentration, the depth, the tannins are quite silky and fine grained, but they’re still present, which means this is definitely still going to age.Wanda
So true that even if we take this 30 minutes from now, the evolution in the glass as well, because of the wine like this, you know, it’s been bottled for five years. It needs to stretch, you know, come alive badly. But this is going very much in the right direction.Nicole
I am being thrown into either the winter holidays here, which I think would be perfect for, but also taste like football season to me. So for me and my house, it’s a big deal. On Sundays we get the crock pot going, a nice beef stew or a beef bourguignon, or just something with some hearty root vegetables that just sits out on the counter all day long.Nicole
Pour myself a nice cheeky splash while it’s cooking and then finish it off with a meal.Wanda
Now I agree. I love a wine like this because you can really integrate it into what you’re doing at home. You don’t have to wait for a special occasion. So that hearty crockpot meal, your home and comfortable clothes have that beautiful wine. Yeah, it’s still a special moment and experience, right?Nicole
I decided a few years ago to stop waiting for a special moment to treat myself. And my life has drastically got better. So, I mean, this is delicious. How many cases are you going to go home?Wanda
Oh, well, you know, my tiny Manhattan apartment. I could squeeze in a case. Well, there’s only.Nicole
600, so I don’t know how lucky we’re going to be, but, you know, I would recommend this a case or two. Open some now for the holidays and then watch this evolve over the next ten years.Wanda
Yes, A great way to learn about wine. Take a wine that you love and watch it evolve and, you know, your palate starts to understand it better, but you just enjoy drinking it as well. It doesn’t have to be complex.Nicole
I mean, I’m enjoying drinking this right now, so from my glass to yours.Wanda
Absolutely. Cheers.