2020 Seven Apart Expedition
CABERNET SAUVIGNON
For those just beginning their expedition, we recommend starting at the base of the mountain and experiencing this Cabernet Sauvignon blended with grapes from our Base Camp Vineyard. This wine is intended to guide you throughout your entire journey, since after all, you have to work your way to the Summit.
The Journey
Harvested
September 11 - September 18, 2020
Aged In oak
18 months
Bottled
June 2022
Released
September 2022
85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, and 6% Petite Sirah
Base Camp Vineyard
33 Barrels Produced
Tasting Notes
Winemaker Andy Erickson
Our 2020 Seven Apart Expedition is the sole expression of the vintage from Seven Apart, and we believe it to capture all the intensity and generosity that a sunny California season can deliver. Each block was harvested and fermented separately, carefully monitored to ensure that the wines were clean and pristine as usual. The individual vineyard wines were aged separately in 50% new French Oak barrels.
After 14 months of aging, we carefully pieced together the blend, and put it back to barrel for another 6 months. The final blend is 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, and 6% Petite Sirah. The results are exciting both as a winemaking victory and as a wine of immense character that marks this unforgettable year.
The color is dark black-purple, and the perfume is vivid and highly inviting. Notes of raspberry, currant, rose petal and balsam are instantly appealing. On entry, there is a delicious, pure, narrow focus on the fruit, with added notes of plum, graphite, and lavender. There is wonderful fresh acidity holding the wine together, and the tannins are certainly present, but burnished and rounded by the barrel aging. The wine lengthens and expands on the finish, leaving you with the desire to have more.
Cellaring & Decanting
Judging from the density and structure present, and having followed this wine incredibly closely through its many stages, we are confident to say that it will likely age for at least two decades in the bottle, and continue to reveal notes about this great journey.
Once you are ready to savor the wine, we highly suggest decanting.
Decant young wines for 1 hour and add 1 hour of decanting for every 10 years of age. You can speed decanting wine by pouring the wine once or twice between two decanters (or between the decanter and the wine bottle with a funnel). If you don’t have a decanter, swirl your wine in the glass. The swirling increases the surface area of wine to oxygen and aerates it just as decanting would.
