Cycles Gladiator Cabernet Sauvignon California 2005

Cabernet Sauvignon. Le grand vin noble. The most noble of wines. No matter how many different wines you produce, your success is almost always measured by the quality of your Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a bit unfair, but so is much in this world. That fact isn't lost on us. Our goal has been and will always be, to produce the very best Cabernet Sauvignon you can find at this price or even higher. So we have secured what we think are the best vineyards on the Central Coast to provide grapes for this particular wine. Our vineyards in Paso Robles and Southern Monterey County yield grapes with brilliant flavors of red fruits, structure, and tannins, and make wines that are lush, vibrant, yet supple. We harvest early in the morning while the grapes are still cool and bring them immediately up to our winery. We gently de-stem and crush the berries into small open-top fermentation tanks, punch down or pump them over 3-4 times per day until dry, then press the finished wines off of the skins and seeds. At this point the wines are taken down to new and older French oak barrels for a long slumber. When it’s time to awaken our Cabernet Sauvignon friends, we gently pump them from their resting place, blend with a little Cabernet Franc for aromatic lift and a little Petite Verdot for structure and finish.