Schrader Cellars Heritage Clone To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2019

The profile of the wine has a richness and brightness and red-fruit jamminess, which is balanced by this beautiful savory component. The Schrader Heritage Clone explodes from the glass with a sumptuous array of tree-ripened red cherries, briar berries, red plums, and raspberries layered with evocative notes of Mandarin orange rind, nectarine blossoms, and chocolate shavings all tipped with sultry tones of savory herbs, hickory embers, and sweet earth. This is an elegant and expressive wine that offers a lush and provocative range of flavor with generous texture and balanced acidity. Interesting and compelling, the Schrader Heritage Clone delivers on the vision of greatness imagined for the heritage clone decades ago by Robert Mondavi.

James Suckling 100
"This is so exotic and exciting, with crushed blackcurrant, cassis, raspberry and tangerine aromas that follow through to very rough, silky tannins that fill your mouth. It goes on for minutes. Intense flavors at the finish, yet it’s linear and so long and seamless. Crunchy. Amazing wine. Drinkable now, but better after 2025." JS Sep 2022

Andrii Stetsiuk
Wine Advocate
wa98+
Another relatively new addition to the Schrader lineup, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Mondavi Heritage Clone To Kalon Vineyard is all Clone 31 (not Clone 39, as previously reported by RPWA). It's expressive and aromatic on the nose, offering up hints of tobacco, mint and sage, plus floral, spicy notes but also plenty of red berries and vanilla (it's aged 18 months in new French oak). Full-bodied, tannic and firmly built, it's another Schrader wine that should really benefit from cellaring. (JC) 98+

Jeb Dunnuck 98+
My notes on the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon To Kalon Vineyard Heritage Clone started with a big "Wow," and it's clearly a structured, serious, incredibly impressive 2019. Giving up plenty of cassis and assorted black and blue fruits, it has a distinct sense of minerality as well as classic Cabernet tobacco, lead pencil, and tobacco leaf nuances. With bright acidity, building tannins, and a concentrated, massive, backward mouthfeel, it needs to be forgotten for 4-5 years and should have decades of prime drinking. 98+

Audrey Frick
Wine Spectator 97
Delivers seriously gorgeous fruit, with plum puree, cassis and black cherry pâte de fruit notes that are compressed together without losing their clarity and definition, while licorice snap, violet and apple wood notes form the frame. Reveals an iron note that drives underneath on the finish, imbuing everything with latent energy and drive. Big, but in an elephant-balancing-on-a-ball manner; gotta tip the cap. Best from 2023 through 2038. 350 cases made.

James Molesworth, October 31, 2022