In America, we love to celebrate entrepreneurs. Our modern day heroes are people who start businesses in their garages and transform them into successful enterprises. But not all of those garage-bound creators are technology nerds. There are plenty of stories in the wine industry of producers who just started making wine in their garage or basement and followed their dreams. Wild Horse Winery is one of those stories.
They say that they created their first wine in a plastic tub as a part of a senior project at Cal Poly. That project inspired them to pursue a dream. In 1981, they purchased their first vineyards in the Central Coast which resulted in their first official wines a couple years later, a pinot noir and a cabernet sauvignon.
Wild Horse has cabernet sauvignon in its roots. And while other parts of California, like Napa Valley, get a lot of hype for their cabernet sauvignon, the Central Coast is a great region for this varietal — and a particularly great region cabernet sauvignon with an exceptional quality-to-price ratio.
Big black cherry aromas are the dominant feature on the nose of this cabernet sauvignon, there’s also plenty of clove, black currant and chocolate. The palate is built on stellar acidity, offering black cherry, plum and blackberry flavors up front, evolving into dark chocolate and cherry toward the notably-long finish. This is a very tasty wine.
While the suggested retail price is $20, I’ve seen it in some places for closer to $15 — which is a great price for this wine!
Wine: Wild Horse Winery & Vineyards, Central Coast
Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2010
Alcohol: 13.5%
Rating: 87
Price: $20.00
Disclosure: This wine was received as a media sample.