2018 Big Basin Vineyards GSM Gabilan Mountains Monterey County 750 ml

When critic Antonio Galloni departed Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, he took with him a deep passion for the work of Bradley Brown and Big Basin Vineyards. “As good as these wines are—and they are often outstanding,” Galloni had written of the Santa Cruz Mountains winery. “My feeling is that Brown has just scratched the surface of his potential.” 

The idea that Brown’s wines are just getting better is borne out by the 2018 Big Basin Vineyards GSM Gabilan Mountains, whose 95-point score from Vinous is one of the best Galloni has given a Big Basin wine: It’s “one the most complete wines I have ever tasted from Big Basin,” he wrote.

Seeing Bradley Brown on the street, you’d peg him for the farmer he is. Dirt-stained blue jeans, sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned, wiry forearms, a battered Carhartt vest and a warm simplicity mark him as a man of the soil. He was one of the early generations of vintners to tap into the incredible potential of the Santa Cruz Mountains, painstakingly planting his Rattlesnake Rock Estate in 2000 with the help of John Alban, one of the Central Coast’s original Rhône Rangers.

The grapes for this bottling come from two sites: The Syrah (35%) and Grenache (39%) from the famed Coastview Vineyard, which consists of steep, rocky soils perched precariously above the Salinas Valley and Chualar Canyon, with views of Monterey Bay, the Salinas Valley, and the distant Mount Harlan AVA. The Mourvèdre (26%) comes from Rodnick.farm, whose heritage vines—many of which were propagated from “suitcase clones” brought over from France—gain their power in a high-desert climate between 1,600 and 1,900 feet above sea level.