2018 Omen Cabernet Sauvignon California 750 ml

For a velvety California Cabernet powerhouse—ideal drinking any day of the week—it doesn’t get much better than this 2018 Omen. 

French-born winemaker Alexandre Remy sourced this wine from a combination of Sierra Foothills and Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards. In doing so, he combined the best elements of two of California's most exciting regions, delivering a downright delicious red for half the price it would command in Napa. 

We know Remy locally as “the grape economist,” because his savant-level expertise in vineyard prices all over California means he specializes in avoiding precisely the sort of grapes that would prevent impeccable value wines like this from existing: expensive ones.

Yet—as Wine Access fans of the earlier Omen wines we’ve offered already know—he also happens to be a Cabernet whisperer, and what’s in the bottle never tastes like the bargain it is. Case in point: This 2018, which bursts with blackberry jam, minerally graphite, and cassis before leading into a layered palate of juicy dark fruit framed with subtle mint and refined tannins. 

The last time Remy shared the tricks of his trade, we were huffing our way up his favorite Sierra Foothills vineyard. He paused as we crested a steep ridge and the valley below opened up to reveal one of the most breathtaking views in all of California.  

Triumphant, he turned to us and said, “If only everyone knew where to look.”

As a top consultant, he has made wine in eight countries, including one of France’s best wine co-ops in the Northern Rhône, before working with Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Moët & Chandon, and Mumm Napa. After moving to California, he became consumed with hunting for untapped vineyards—especially those beyond Napa. 

He memorized maps and soil studies across the state, prospected like no winemaker before him, discovered vineyard gold in unlikely places, and founded Omen. 

Refreshingly for a winemaker with a résumé as impressive as Remy’s, the economics of making expensive wine turned him off from ever wanting to do it again. “It’s too obvious,” he says. A true artist, his niche instinct for sourcing incredible, overlooked grapes is now a bona fide obsession. 

“I know too much about vineyard real estate now,” he told us recently. “Coming from France, where every vineyard has been mapped, it’s impossible for me to ignore these tiny hidden gems before they eventually get discovered—and inflate to their market value.”

The two regions he chose for this Cabernet benefit from generous sunshine and poor, well-draining soils that stress the vines and produce deeply concentrated wines. The high-elevation, iron-rich soils of his beloved Sierra Foothills site add a savory mineral complexity and structural backbone to Paso’s more generous, black-fruited Cabernet grapes. 

Remy doesn’t skimp in the cellar either. He ages his Cabernet nine months in partially new French oak to add an impressive level of sophistication. Inky, bold, and packed with ripe fruit character, this lively ruby red is simultaneously elegant and balanced—a hallmark of the duality in the two appellations chosen for this killer Cabernet.