2018 Rivers-Marie Lore Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon | Oakville Napa Valley California 750ml

The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Lore Vineyard offers a more rounded, opulent texture, with a fruit-forward attack that turns more serious and structured on the mid-palate. Beautifully concentrated, loaded with minerality, and just a full-bodied, powerhouse of a wine, it's another 2018 that's going to have plenty of upfront appeal yet also have a long, long life. | 97-99 points, Jeb Dunnuck for jebdunnuck.com

You can really see the structure of the vintage in this wine. If any wine in the lineup was going to show what maximum extraction levels in 2018 look like, it was going to be the Lore bottling. The color is a different level of dark compared to everything else this vintage. The initial aromatic notes are very brooding and backward: espresso roast, scorched earth, graphite and blackcurrants. There is some give to the palate with higher toned notes of violets, milk chocolate and cassis fighting their way in. If there is one thing I keep coming back to when tasting this wine, it's the texture. The many layers that unfold as you move from entry, to mid-palate, to finish, help define this vineyard's greatness. You see that in all six vintages of the Lore bottling. The eastern Oakville hills location provides this wine with ample tannin, but it is very ripe helping to frame and lengthen the finish. Tannin maturity is what we use to determine our pick date. Color, aroma, flavor, and acidity are always abundant in this wine but unlocking the true greatness of the site comes down to the quality of its tannin. Our goal is to produce wines that speak of their place first and this wine and the Herb Lamb that follows couldn't be greater evidence of the achievement of that in 2018. 250 cases produced. | Rivers-Marie

Winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown has a history of high praise and huge scores with Napa Cabernet Sauvignon he has crafted for prestigious labels such as Schrader, Revana, Pulido-Walker, Maybach...and a stable of others. The wines for his own label Rivers-Marie are no exception. He selects fruit from the vineyard sites he sources with such a studious calculation that his winemaking efforts are focused on framing the raw material to simply show it in context. The Lore Vineyard, a 2 acre site on a steep incline at the western edge of Oakville gives tiny berries with a natural concentration and density for a wine with broad shoulders and a texture that focuses on volume. We are definitely looking forward to future development as Thomas works with this site. | Falling Bright