100-point winemaker blends Napa and Sonoma with stellar results
![Wine Bottle](https://static.wineaccess.com/optimized/images/products/2022/08/2020_Martin_Ray_Cabernet_Sauvignon_Sonoma_County_Napa_County_Bottleshot/3a6950cb6bfbe5d7ceb1632c2518cdae.png)
- 92 pts James Suckling92 pts JS
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2020 Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County Napa County 750 ml
- Curated by unrivaled experts
- Choose your delivery date
- Temperature controlled shipping options
- Get credited back if a wine fails to impress
Martin Ray Outdid Themselves with This Deal
The call came from one of the Cabernet juggernauts of Alexander Valley.
It was fall of 2020, and the winery was in survival mode. Since restaurants were being walloped by closures, this icon—which enjoys placements on just about every steakhouse list between the coasts and therefore rises and falls with the hospitality business—decided to hedge their bets a bit.
They had prime fruit in one hand and an airtight NDA in the other, and when they came calling, the Martin Ray team immediately recognized the opportunity before them. They blended wine from this sweet spot of Sonoma County with their tried-and-true sites in Napa Valley—and the result is a Cabernet that absolutely crushes it in the bang-for-the-buck department. James Suckling called this 2020 Martin Ray Cab a straight-up “excellent value” in his 92-point review.
With this bottling, Emerson and winemaker Leslie Mead Renaud use the same approach that typically merits sky-high prices but manage to deliver a weeknight value. Labor intensive, small-lot winegrowing and harvesting techniques in some of the best Napa and Sonoma terroirs make for superb grapes, which underwent two weeks of punchdowns in open-top fermenters before spending 12 months in 45% new French oak barrels.
The result is rich and round, superb with food or on its own. Silky, decadent, delicious from the first sip and built to enjoy now, it achieves a standard that few affordable wines from the region ever reach. The synthesis of soft and bright Sonoma Cabernet grapes with the structure and black fruit of Napa are a perfect combination. It’s simply one of the best Cab deals we’ve seen this year.