The New World meets the Old in a bottle of LXV’s 2020 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
By Anna Hatfield
2020 LXV Cabernet Sauvignon
Denner and Onx Vineyards
Experience:
Visit the Tasting Room - We will upgrade your tasting to include the pairing. Use code: COMP2SPICE
LXV’s 2020 Reserve Cabernet is a beautiful expression of what an old world Cabernet Sauvignon is like with the mouthfeel of a new world California Cabernet. We are meeting in the middle to create a lighter, but intense in flavors and aromas, wine that resembles favorable characteristics of both new and old world styles. This wine is a true homage to both worlds – we respect the old and the new. We have the responsibility of our winery to represent and honor both philosophies.
Two West Side Paso Robles Vineyards with Two Completely Different Fruit Expressions
Denner and ONX – taking our favorite expressions of West Paso Cabernet and combining them together. Even though these sites are on the West Side of Paso, they are completely night and day from one another.
Denner Vineyard is located in the Willow Creek District of West Paso Robles. The Cabernet we are getting from Denner Vineyard is grown on limestone/Calcareous soils. These soils help to brighten the wine and create a Cabernet with a beautiful acidity.
On the other hand, the other half of the Cabernet we are getting from ONX in the Templeton Gap District of West Paso Robles. The Cabernet Sauvignon grown here is a more elegant and silky expression of Cab. This Cab had deeper and darker fruit notes versus the brighter red fruit notes of the Denner Cabernet.
When we compared these two vineyards we immediately thought of the left versus right bank of Bordeaux… Left Bank being the more limestone driven (we call it the “masculine” side) and the right bank more clay soils (the more elegant “feminine” side).
Winemaking
The grapes were harvested a bit early on October 5th and October 27th of 2020, and were immediately destemmed and put into stainless tanks for fermentation after being brought back to the winery. The wine was harvested on skins for about 3 weeks and then pressed to new and neutral French Barriques..
Tasting Notes
When most people think about California Cabs – we think of big bold, fruit bomb wines with heavy oak notes. Anyone thinking this as a standard definition for California Cabs will be shocked while tasting our 2020 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Cherries and light red fruits play on your palette while notes of baking spices from the little bit of New Oak we used to age this wine.
Note from Winemaker Jeff Strekas
“Joining together our favorite barrels of Cabernet we fermented from ONX Estate Vineyard and Denner Vineyard, this wine shows off classic European Cabernet character along with showing great California style body and mouthfeel.” – Jeff Strekas
Taste the story Welcome back
Wines in this story
Keep Reading
Bordeaux Wine Trip & Saint-Émilion Guide | Neeta & Kunal’s LXV Story
For Kunal and me, Bordeaux has never been only a place to taste. It is friends, a cooperage fire, and Maison Mittal…
How Sauvignon Blanc found its swagger
As a Bordeaux house, Sauvignon Blanc made sense for us. Getting excited about it took a little longer.
Spotlight: Cabernet Franc
It began in Bordeaux, with a glass of Saint-Émilion. Cabernet Franc has shaped every year since.