Wines made from Cabernet-Sauvignon grapes of Minervois

The voice drops a little; the tone grows more reverential. Everyone knows; everyone understands. There will be wry allusions to a quest, perhaps even the grail. Sacrifice is expected en route; failure (always forgiven: a badge of honour) beckons on every side. Kitted up, your hopes armour-plated? I might be talking about planting vines on a cleared slope, or simply about taking the corkscrew to a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine, but you all know by now what’s meant. Pinot Noir. ‘Pinotism’ ...

While taller overall vines do exist in regions such as Galicia with their pergola training method, the roots of any vine usually top out at 37cm. It’s at this top point where the Vitis vinifera shoot is grafted in and continues to grow, giving us such grapes as Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. This is opposed to the rootstocks which are composed of various crosses of vines such as Vitis rupestris which aren’t used for wine production but are resistant to the root louse, phylloxera. This new tal ...

To Kalon, a vineyard regarded as California’s crown jewel thanks to its enduring renown for producing world-class, top-scoring Cabernet Sauvignon, has secured its legendary status with organic certification. Blue-chip producers such as Robert Mondavi, Schrader Cellars, To Kalon Vineyard Company and Cliff Lede have all cemented their reputations on To Kalon fruit. But as iconic as they and this vineyard are, there is always room for improvement. The past three years have seen rigorous overhauls w ...