2019 Vocal Cabernet Sauvignon Bates Ranch Santa Cruz Mountains 750 ml

There are vineyards that winemakers whisper about.

Bates Ranch, tucked into the redwoods and live oak savannahs on the back side of Mount Madonna, is one of them. At the southern extreme of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, the Bates family has been farming here for four generations. The Cabernet vines that matter most grow at over 2,000 feet on a severe southeast-facing slope, dry farmed and own rooted, planted in 1969. They have never been replanted.

The Santa Cruz Mountains are a different proposition from Napa. The AVA is defined less by its valley floor than by its ridges and canyons, by the cold air that pours in off the Monterey Bay over Hecker Pass, by the volcanic soils and dramatic diurnal swings that make ripeness a harder-won thing. Bates Ranch sits at the rugged southern extreme of all of this, where the mountain does the heavy lifting. The result is a style of Cabernet Sauvignon that California produced more of in the 1970s and 1980s and far less of today—structured, place-driven, built for the cellar.

Thunder Mountain made its name here through the 1990s, turning out Bates Ranch Cabs that critics and collectors still talk about. Since then, the vineyard has been a coveted source for a small handful of producers who understand what these old, own-rooted vines can do. Vocal is one of them.

Vocal is Ted Glennon’s project—a sixth-generation Californian who left a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed sommeliers to make wine. Through his Vinos Finos de California label, he produces a small lineup of single-vineyard wines from the coastal mountains and valleys of the Monterey Bay region. For this Bates Ranch Cabernet, Glennon partnered with Ian Brand—the San Francisco Chronicle Winemaker of the Year—whose deep knowledge of these coastal mountain vineyards made him a natural collaborator. The philosophy is spare: trust the fruit, ferment spontaneously wherever possible, and let the site do the talking.

The Bates Ranch Cab is destemmed and aged in barrel for under two years—just long enough to refine the tannins without softening the wine’s essential character. The 2019 vintage gave the Santa Cruz Mountains a long, even growing season. Cool nights off the Bay kept acidity in check; warm days allowed the Cabernet to ripen fully without losing its mountain edge.

Decanter, who awarded this wine 95 points, compared it to the great Calera Pinot Noirs—a reference point that tells you everything about what Vocal is after here: elegance, earthy complexity, refined texture. Medium-bodied, with fine-grained tannins and a quiet, persistent energy, this is a Cab that earns its score without announcing itself.