2018 Sauvignon Blanc

Bart and Daphne Araujo's Accendo wines keep getting better. The 2018 Sauvignon Blanc is the finest vintage of that wine yet. In Cabernet land, the Araujos continue to refine their approach to the sites they work with. Their 2017 Cabernet is fabulous; the 2016 is just as terrific as it was last year, and the 2018 (which I tasted from separate components) is looking like it, too, will be stellar. Going back to the 2017 for a second, a big part of what makes that wine special is that it was made at the Araujo's state of the art Wheeler Farms custom crush facility, designed by winemaker Nigel Kinsman. Equipped with generator power and the most modern equipment, Wheeler Farms operated through the October 2017 fires with no interruptions, which is quite remarkable.