2020 Snowden 'Dum Spiro Spero' Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Winemaker Notes:  “Dum Spiro Spero” – while I breath I hope – is the Snowden family motto which has appeared on every label and every cork since we began producing our own wines 30 years ago. For our 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon, we are using it to mark a unique cuvée from a unique growing year, when winemaker Diana Snowden Seysses combined the Cabernet Sauvignon which would normally have gone into our Brothers and Los Ricos vineyard designates with Cabernet Franc from our Melchior Kemper block. Diana loved the small clusters and small berries of 2020, which resulted in “spectacular concentration. The bouquet is lifted with violets and beeswax. Plum, black cherry, and Bramble lie beneath. On the palate, the wine boasts layers of juicy dark fruit – it is dense and hedonistic.” Fermented with wild, native yeasts, aged 18 months in French oak barrels, 50% new, and bottled unfined in April, 2022. Due to the fires of 2020, it is the only red wine we will be releasing under the Snowden label from the vintage.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM


Wine Spectator - "Juicy and focused, with a bramble and licorice edge to the core of plum and cherry preserves. Offers modest toast that lets the fruit play out, with a tobacco hint on the friendly finish. Drink now through 2030. 935 cases made."