The smooth and savory Intrinsic Cabernet Sauvignon.
94% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Cabernet Franc from Columbia Valley, Washington.
More than half of the blend comes from vineyards throughout the Horse Heaven Hills with most of the remaining coming from the Beverly Vineyard. 50% of the final blend wine was aged in older French oak for 12 months and 10% was aged in concrete tanks. However, the most interesting part of the winemaking process happened even earlier, read on to find out more.
Sample submitted for review. The Intrinsic Cabernet Sauvignon has an SRP of $22 and is available for as low as $17 including at many Costco locations.
Street art bears an uncanny resemblance to winemaking. For both, the environment affects the final art, resulting in a collaboration between artist and landscape.
14.5% Alcohol
As mentioned above, today’s wine is very unique in the way it was made. Crushing grapes produces a very light colored juice. Red wines get their dark color through contact with the skins, seeds and sometimes even stems of the grapes in a process called maceration. This contact can also help influence the body, tannins and flavors in a wine.
For a typical Washington Cabernet maceration lasts about a month. Winemaker Juan Munoz Oca upped that time to an astonishing 9 months for 50% of this wine to help bring out the “intrinsic” qualities of the grapes (thus the name). The end result? Let’s find out.
The 2017 Intrinsic Cabernet Sauvignon begins with pleasing aromas of blackberry, leather and a little vanilla. The flavors really explode in the mouth when tasting this smooth yet rustic wine.
The blackberry, black cherry, plum, leather and earth flavors continue to build all the way through the mid-palate and there’s also a ton of intriguing secondary flavors – balsamic, black olives, vanilla, chocolate, savory herbs and a little cola – to name a few.
The wine ends dry, savory and even a bit dusty with all those secondary flavors lingering in the mouth for quite a while. A very worthy experiment in winemaking indeed.
We first reviewed this wine when it was introduced (the 2014 vintage) and the 2017 is just as good. Enjoy!
Ready to buy? See a listing of local retailers here.
You can also find more of our recommended wines from Costco here.
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