Dropout Cabernet Sauvignon Dry Creek Valley 2017

Jon Keyes is the amazing winemaker, and all-around spectacular human being, behind Dropout wines. Dry creek cabernet, with this pedigree, for an unbelievable $25.95?!? This is a micro-production that you are going to be thrilled no one else has heard of...yet!

Jon dropped out of college midway through a chemistry degree at UC Santa Barbara...hence the name, Dropout. But we think he had a pretty good reason for doing so...a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in the cellar at the revered and impossibly culty Sine Qua Non! From there, he gained invaluable experience with warm climates and new world stylings – first with Two Hands in Australia’s Barossa Valley, and then later with America’s most famous winemaker, Thomas Rivers Brown, as the cellar master at Outpost Wine up on Howell Mountain.  That’s quite the resume, to be certain, with another stop working under Mark Herold as the veritable cherry on top! 

This cabernet sauvignon is everything you’d expect – given Jon’s career and his influences. The wine is ripe, powerful, layered, concentrated, and impossibly smooth. Crazy luxurious in the mouth, with an impressive range of berry notes, toasty oak sensations, and an imposing structure to wrap it all up. Dark cherry kirsch, blueberry pie, luscious dark chocolate, and spicy, toasted peppercorns – there is so much to love here and drinking perfectly at a youthful six years in. Did you see that price?!?! Cali-cabernet south of $30 is few and far between these days, and you’d be hard-pressed to find something that can stand toe-to-toe with this at anywhere near the price!