98pts Jeb Dunnuck

Absolutely stunning, the 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon Amoenus comes from a cooler site in the warmer Calistoga appellation and offers red and black fruits, spicy wood, graphite, and pencil lead aromatics. It's ripe, full-bodied, and powerful, with ample mid-palate depth, velvety tannins, and a blockbuster finish. This sensational Cabernet Sauvignon can be drunk today yet deserves 4-5 years of bottle age and will see its 30th birthday in fine form. There are 325 cases produced. Drink 2025-2055.

Winery Notes

The 13th release of Maybach Amoenus Cabernet, from a hillside vineyard on the western side of Calistoga, where the moderating temperatures of the Black Mountain Gap are 10-15 degrees cooler than on the western side, allowing gradual ripening and good maturation.

The vineyard site from where this fruit is sourced each year is its own little pocket valley in northwest Calistoga. When you leave the main road and meander down the gravel driveway, you’re surrounded by rolling hills, sprawling ancient oak trees. Once you gain the ridge line and drop back down towards the Amoenus block, you are greeted by the biggest oak of them all, a gatekeeper of this micro-valley. This same sense of sprawling natural grandeur is found in the 2022 Maybach Amoenus.

Winemaker : Thomas Rivers Brown