While not quite as minimalist as the 2019 Vineyard Series I reviewed earlier, this Oakridge 864 Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 is another entirely elegant, and very classy wine, let alone another reminder that Cabernet doesn’t need to be hulking and 14.5% to be grand.

From the Winery Block at Oakridge, it spends 4 weeks on skins then 15 months in barrel. So classy, like a well-tailored suit, and so varietal. Ripe dark berries and pencil shavings, the nose and the palate feel both serious yet also refined. Indeed it feels rounder than 13% suggests, yet moderate and cedary with a little mint. It grows on you this, at first a bit too backward for its own good. But the more you look, the more the drying tannins and the cedary fruit tend to line up. Is it too tannic? I’m ok with the firm end, but I’d still wait to drink it. You know it’s going to be great.

Oakridge 864 Cabernet Sauvignon 2018. Best drinking: seriously wait. Or decant it for a few hours. Otherwise. drink in another four years and for the next twenty. 18.5/20, 94/100. 13%, $90. Oakridge website. Would I buy it? A bottle for the cellar maybe?