Power and Pedigree: Benchmark Cabernet Blends That Wow

Wine Team New York | May 6, 2023

The legendary enologist André Tchelistcheff once quipped: “God made Cabernet Sauvignon, whereas the Devil made Pinot Noir.” While the thin-skinned, famously fickle Pinot variety gives vintners fits, the rich, robust Cabernet Sauvignon grape is often a winemaker’s best friend. Adaptable to almost any terroir, it produces some of the greatest, boldest red wines in the world, at a range of price points.

Napa and Bordeaux are two of the best-known regions for producing Cabernet-dominant wines—and several of our selections below showcase why these two areas win out vintage after vintage.

In sun-drenched Napa, with its mix of benchlands and valleys, classic Cab bottlings from Dana Estates, Corison, and Snowden overflow with texture and body. In Bordeaux, centuries of savoir-faire in the cellar and vineyard and a maritime climate tease aristocratic elegance from the grape’s natural power. Critically-acclaimed expressions from Château Lynch-Bages and Château Talbot deliver pedigree, refinement, and superb age-worthiness.

But if you just limited your collection to those geographic regions, you’d be missing out on stunning Cabernet exemplars like Italy's legendary Super Tuscan, Sassicaia; the old-vine Spanish blockbuster Torres Mas Plana; or Australia's Cabernet icon, Bin 407.

Complemented by dancing partners like Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc that soften the edges and round out structure, the showstopping Cabernet blends below go a long way to showing why this grape is so universally adored.