Shannon Family of Wines OVIS Cabernet Sauvignon High Valley 2017

Lake County might not be on your radar for delicious, collectible cabernet, but it should be. The Shannon family, of Lake County’s High Valley, has created a delectable wine that tastes like the best of Napa, but is priced like the discount retailer. Yep, it’s under $26 and was rated 92 points by Wine Enthusiast! If you’ve ever been curious about some of these other California AVAs making stellar wine outside of Napa and Sonoma, this is a great place to start!

Clay Shannon spent years in Sonoma running an empire of vineyards before he made his way north to expand his kingdom to the new and surprisingly impressive territory. High Valley is an up-and-coming AVA situated on the northern edge of the Mayacamas mountain range. The wilds of Lake County aren’t all that dissimilar to the high-elevation, rocky, volcanic mountains within Napa, and happen to produce a similar product: powerful, ageworthy, downright delectable wines – on much more inexpensive land.   

This Shannon Lake County cabernet exudes sophistication. If you were to guess its price you’d think well beyond $26. You’d even think more than $60! It’s well integrated and robustly structured, giving black cherries, plums, currants, blackberries, and even black olives. Yeah, it’s got a LOT going on and it works so well. It’s carefully balanced with the warming, spiced notes of Saigon cinnamon, black pepper, and clove to round out all those giant fruit flavors! A nice, 30-month rest on oak gives this fruity, spicy heavy-hitter a perfect opportunity to smooth out and come together, culminating as a no-nonsense, layered, and velvety cab that, we swear, in a blind-tasting, we’d call a Napa big gun. But for under $26? Let’s just call it your new daily-drinker cab! We’ve already bought a few for ourselves. Now it’s your turn.