2019 Baker & Hamilton Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville, California   

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon is a new wine made by the Phillips family, owners of Vine Hill Ranch, and winemaker Françoise Peschon. It is without question one of the most impressive debuts I tasted this year. Silky and gracious, the 2019 is a wonderfully understated, classy Cabernet that shows the more restrained side of the year in its super-classic mid-weight feel. Cedar, tobacco and sweet floral notes add gorgeous inner perfume. With the Baker & Hamilton Cabernet, the Philips’s aim to make a wine that will work well in restaurants and retail shops, so all of the wine is sold through distribution rather than direct. You don’t have to have a Nobel Prize to figure out what the vineyard source is. Let’s leave it at that