As Monterey's largest family-owned grape growers and winemakers, the Scheid family may not be the first to see their name in person, but their grapes are used by many of the region's most prestigious wineries.
The Scheid Vineyards series is a rare wine from the Scheid family, one of the few in the United States to generate its own wind power and to be committed to sustainability, and which can usually only be purchased by visiting the tasting room.
<Limited Quantity> Cabernet Sauvignon, the world's most important black grape, can be said to be one of life's great joys.
We carefully select where we plant our Cabernet.
A location with warm sunlight during the day, cool nights to maintain fruit balance, well-drained soil and a gentle slope.
All of this comes together to enable us to produce exceptional Cabernet year after year.
The 2018 is a powerful, concentrated wine with aromas of blackberry, elderberry, ripe plum and hints of tarragon.
Bold and full-bodied, it's bordered by elegant tannins and finishes with lingering notes of black fruit, vanilla and mocha.
Although delicious to drink now, this rich, powerful Cabernet will age beautifully over the next 5-10 years.
The Cabernet comes from our own vineyards, San Lucas and Haymes Valley Vineyards.
Hames Valley is located on the southern edge of Monterey and experiences large temperature differences between day and night, typically up to 10 degrees apart.
San Lucas is a picture-postcard beautiful vineyard region with rolling terrain, sunny days and cool nights.
Each vintage these two vineyards compete for the Cabernet throne, but San Lucas came out on top in the 2018 blend.
The 2018 growing season was one of the mildest vintages in recent years.
Timely rains and a cooler than average spring meant flowering was slightly delayed until June.
Then, with temperatures rising properly in August, fruit growth and pigment development caught up.
Autumn conditions were perfect with mild temperatures and no heavy rainfall, allowing the grapes to ripen slowly and steadily.
The result is a winemaker's dream: amazing fruit with incredible quality and flavor potential.
The grapes are hand-picked, de-stemmed, crushed and then fermented in small, open-top fermenters.
Punchdowns were performed twice daily during fermentation to gently extract color and phenolic compounds.
After racking, the juice underwent secondary malolactic fermentation and aging for 18 months in 60% French oak, 28% American oak, and 12% Hungarian oak barrels before being bottled unfiltered to preserve the tannin structure and aromas.
Scheid Vineyards founder, Al Scheid, first purchased 15 acres of land on the outskirts of Greenfield, California in 1972.
At the time, wine grape growing was in its infancy in Monterey County, but Al was attracted to the region's winemaking potential.
So they consulted with Professor A.J. Winkler, an authority on grape cultivation at the University of California, Davis, who had created a climate region distribution map for grape cultivation in 1960, and gradually purchased land within Monterey County, which covers regions from Region I to Region IV, and planted grape varieties suitable for each region.
Founded by Al, Scheid Vineyards grew steadily and was further expanded by the addition of his son Scott in 1986, grape growing specialist Kurt Gornick in 1988, and his daughter Heidi in 1992.
The company now owns 12 vineyards (totaling 1,600 hectares) in the Salinas Valley, which stretches 112 km from north to south, from Region I to Region IV.
The company also built a state-of-the-art winery with a production capacity of 1.8 million cases, as well as a smaller winery for handcrafted wines, and continues to produce world-class Monterey wines.