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Rapid Ship
Red
750ml
Bottle: $11.99
This Cabernet offers aromas of bright cherry, currant and raspberry with notes of toasted oak and vanilla. In the...
Sale
Red
750ml
Bottle: $17.93 $19.60
12 bottles: $17.57
Extreme elevation and rare Redvine soils make this mountain site ideal for growing well-structured Cabernet Sauvignon...
Red
Red
750ml
Bottle: $21.59
12 bottles: $21.16
Beautiful aromas of black cherry, dried blackberry, chocolate, caramel and hints of licorice. The palate is bold and...
Case only
Red
750ml - Case of 12
Bottle: $45.11
Dark core of cassis and plum notes laced with violet, graphite and juniper. Clean and balanced with a long,...
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Red
750ml
Bottle: $12.76 $13.43
12 bottles: $10.45
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Red
1.5Ltr
Bottle: $21.09 $22.20
6 bottles: $13.00
Sale
Red
750ml
Bottle: $11.52 $12.13
12 bottles: $9.03
Sale
Rapid Ship
Red
750ml
Bottle: $34.30 $39.20
The 2021 Game Trail Cabernet Sauvignon is crunchy, refreshing and easy to drink. It's scented of fresh blackcurrants...
WA
94
Red
750ml
Bottle: $22.15
12 bottles: $21.71
Inviting scents of black cherries, tobacco and creamy vanilla with a mouth full of rich fruit and elegant integrated...
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Red
750ml
Bottle: $38.94
6 bottles: $38.16
The vineyards we selected for the 2020 Largo are all located in the hillsides off the eastern bank of the Russian...
12 FREE
Sale
Red
750ml
Bottle: $19.94 $21.20
12 bottles: $19.00
On the nose, our 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon shows plush dark fruits, black cherry and cassis, with hints of thyme, sage...
Sale
Red
750ml
Bottle: $22.94 $23.60
12 bottles: $21.28
Paul Dolan Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced from meticulously tended vineyards, and our balanced winemaking...
Case only
Red
750ml - Case of 12
Bottle: $14.01
This Estate Cabernet Sauvignon has aromas of dark red fruit. A lush entry of plums, followed with a hint of dark...

Altesse Cabernet Sauvignon Grenache Mavrodaphne United States California Mendocino County Wine

The Grenache grape holds the honor of being the most widely planted wine grape varietal on earth. It has a long and impressive history, and has been the backbone of the some of the planet’s most respected and famed wine regions, blended with Syrah in regions such as Chateauneuf du Pape, and in certain other Loire and Languedoc regions where it reigns supreme as a single varietal wine grape. In other key areas, such as Spain’s La Rioja (where it is known as Garnacha Tinta), it is blended with Tempranillo to make that country’s signature red wine, and is widely used as a blending grape in other old and new world countries, due to its unique character and jammy, fruit forward character.


For a long time, the Grenache grape was somewhat looked down upon as an ignoble varietal, incapable of producing wines of any particular interest. However, times are very much changing - in the right hands, Grenache grapes result in astonishingly intense and complex wines, full of fascinating features, and capable of achieving plenty of expression. For a while now, Grenache has been a major player in Australian wines. While not yet quite as extensively planted down under as Shiraz is, the Barossa Valley is bringing out some of the finest examples of this grape’s wines in recent years.

In the Archaea region, high in the Northern Peloponnese mountains, the predominant grape varietal grown is the prized Mavrodaphne. Meaning 'Black Laurel', the Mavrodaphne grapes have extremely dark skins, and ripen slowly under the Greek sunshine, helped by the mineral rich soils the vines thrive in. This grape varietal is mostly used to produce the opaque, inky fortified wine of the same name, which is popular all over Greece and elsewhere in the world. This fortified wine allows the grapes to really show off their complex and fascinating flavors, which range from a rich marzipan to flavors of bitter chocolate, sweet coffee, dried figs and prunes, as well as plenty of jammy fruit notes.

Mavrodaphne is produced in a traditional method which involves leaving the grape juice exposed to the sun in large vats, before having its fermentation halted by the addition of various distillates taken from previous successful vintages. This mixture contains plenty of residual sugar, which gives the end result its characteristic sticky sweetness, and also helps with the next fermentation process, which typically takes place in large underground cellars. The final product is a heady drink, absolutely bursting with unusual, rich and sweet flavors and carried in a dark and slightly viscous Port-like liquid.

Mavrodaphne grapes are also used for the production of still red wines, but are generally blended with varietals such as Agiorgitiko or imported grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon. Mavrodaphne grapes are excellent for mellowing more acidic varieties, and producing deliciously rounded wines, which have taken the international market by storm in recent decades.

Additional Information on Greek Wines


Greek Wines
Ancient Greek Wines – A Brief History of Wine in Greece
The Myth of Dionysus, Greek God of Wine
What is Retsina?

Of all the New World wine countries, perhaps the one which has demonstrated the most flair for producing high quality wines - using a combination of traditional and forward-thinking contemporary methods - has been the United States of America. For the past couple of centuries, the United States has set about transforming much of its suitable land into vast vineyards, capable of supporting a wide variety of world-class grape varietals which thrive on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coastlines. Of course, we immediately think of sun-drenched California in regards to American wines, with its enormous vineyards responsible for the New World's finest examples of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot based wines, but many other states have taken to viticulture in a big way, with impressive results. Oregon, Washington State and New York have all developed sophisticated and technologically advanced wine cultures of their own, and the output of U.S wineries is increasing each year as more and more people are converted to their produce.

California as a wine producing region has grown in size and importance considerably over the past couple of centuries, and today is the proud producer of more than ninety percent of the United States' wines. Indeed, if California was a country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world, with a vast range of vineyards covering almost half a million acres. The secret to California's success as a wine region has a lot to do with the high quality of its soils, and the fact that it has an extensive Pacific coastline which perfectly tempers the blazing sunshine it experiences all year round. The winds coming off the ocean cool the vines, and the natural valleys and mountainsides which make up most of the state's wine regions make for ideal areas in which to cultivate a variety of high quality grapes.