Worth The Drama
TASTING NOTES: “This Cab Sauvignon comes from two steep hillside blocks of Cox Vineyard in Mendocino. The grapes were picked by hand, gently destemmed, and cold soaked for 7 days. We fermented each lot in small open-top tanks, punch-down by hand, and aged in French Oak barrels for 2 years. This wine is not fined or filtered.” (AbV 13.7%, pH 3.68, TA 6.0 g/L)
VARIETALS: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Certified Organic-CCOF farming.
BARRELS: 100% French Oak Barrels (25% New)
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Cox Vineyard, one of the two steep hillside blocks sourcing this wine, shares its name with the Cox’s Orange Pippin — one of the most celebrated apples in history.
Developed in Buckinghamshire, England, around 1830 by a retired brewer named Richard Cox, the Cox’s Orange Pippin became the dominant apple of the British Isles for most of the 20th century. Which is remarkable, when you think about it, because it is an extremely fussy, temperamental, difficult-to-grow fruit that sulks in wet summers, throws tantrums in cold springs, and requires near-perfect conditions to produce the honey-and-anise complexity it’s famous for. The British grew it anyway, on an enormous scale, because it was simply that good. A nation of people who pride themselves on understated stoicism decided this apple was worth the drama. High praise.
The Cox’s Orange Pippin has largely lost the commercial battle to sturdier, more photogenic varieties — your Galas and your Braeburns — because supermarkets want consistency and shelf life, not character. Sound familiar? It’s the same tension that plays out in wine, between what’s easy to produce at scale and what’s genuinely worth the trouble. Steep hillside blocks, hand-punched fermentations, two years in barrel — nobody does that stuff because it’s convenient. They do it because, like that crotchety English apple, the results are simply better.
