Cabernet Sauvignon: Bordeaux, Napa Valley and ... Ojai

If it’s excellent Cabernet Sauvignon you’re after, it’s easy to find one from the Gironde estuary’s Left Bank or Rutherford, California. More challenging is to find an Ojai vineyard successfully growing this so-called Noble grape partnered with a hometown winemaker turning that fruit into noteworthy wine.

Enter Majestic Oak Vineyard’s co-owner and winemaker Andrew Coble and the 2016 Dirty Boy Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, a limited release of only 24 cases.

Coble enjoys a close friendship with Philip and Maren Vertoch, owners of Dirty Boy Vineyard in Ojai. “They are great people who take pride in caring for this plot,” Coble says. Cabernet grapevines grow best in rocky soil, such as the gravel of Bordeaux and Napa; Dirty Boy’s Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are grown on a steep southeastern-facing slope in well-draining soil studded with fractured limestone—perfect for this varietal.

Due to Pierce’s Disease, spread by a leaf-hopping insect called the glassy-winged sharpshooter, some vineyards have struggled to survive in the Ojai Valley. “There is something special about this area, as long as we can keep vine disease in check,” Coble says. “This wine is unique to this place.” Coble likens it to a Galapagos Islands subspecies: “It’s definitively Cabernet Sauvignon, but unique to itself and its place.”

Since this was his first time working with Dirty Boy Cabernet, Coble wanted to see what the fruit could do without a lot of intervention. “The terroir is beautiful enough that we needed to do very little,” he says. “I focused on exhibiting the fruit. The wine showcases a different side to Cabernet: less oak, more fruit, but with immense depth and character.”

It was aged in neutral French oak for 22 months and bottled unfiltered.

As with most Cabernets, it should age well and would pair nicely with a juicy rib eye topped with blue cheese butter; it is also delicately acidic enough to enjoy with a big slice of lasagna.

Majestic Oak 2016 Dirty Boy Cabernet Sauvignon is available to wine club members late December, and in February at the winery’s tasting room in Downtown Ojai.

For more info, visit MajesticOakVineyard.com.