2018 Aperture Cellars Oliver's Ranch Vineyard Alexander Valley 750 ml

Jesse Katz’s monumental and spellbinding 2018 Aperture Cellars Oliver Ranch Cabernet Alexander Valley is a testament to his gifts. A single-vineyard Cabernet drawn off a site planted in 1989 by Phil Freese—the man who lead’s Aperture’s viticulture today—-it’s crafted with the savoir-faire Katz absorbed across 20 harvests at iconic properties like Petrus, Screaming Eagle, and Viña Cobos.

At just 37 years old, Katz has already made a wine that fetched a cool mil at auction and a Malbec that Robert Parker speculated “may be the finest I have ever tasted from California.” He’s also been named a Wine Enthusiast 40 Under 40 Tastemaker and a Wine Spectator Rising Star, and he was the first winemaker to land on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.

So what does a winemaker—again, still not even 40!—do after all that? Katz headed to Sonoma because the region is decades behind Napa in terms of site selection. That, he told us, presents an opportunity to make a mark by raising Cabernets like this one to unprecedented heights.

He was drawn to Alexander Valley for its red volcanic soils and distinctive climate, which features cold nights giving way to days that heat up like a Wolf range. The vitality and muscle of the Oliver Ranch Cabernet is smoothed out by 22 months of aging in 60-gallon oak barrels, 80% of them new. The result is a Cabernet that stands with the very best in California.