2018 Titus Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Phil Titus’s legacy doesn’t need help. 

The Chappellet winemaker is already a 100-point star and perennial Wine Access favorite. Yet his 2018 Titus Cabernet—from a vintage Wine Spectator rated at 99 points—just strengthens his status as a Napa Valley great.

This is the centerpiece of the Titus lineup, and it’s up there with some of his most powerful and exquisitely focused Cabs. Grown primarily in the ample sunlight and diverse soils of Titus Ranch at the base of Howell Mountain, it’s a supple, complex Cab composed of grapes the family once sold to big names like BV and Charles Krug—but now reserve for their own bottlings.  

In 2018, Titusand his crew—including his PhD vineyard-manager brother Eric and winemaker Stephan Cruzan—were gifted with pure gold. The immaculate growing season seemed to last forever, showering the Valley with warm, gentle sunlight late into the fall. The team let the Cabernet hang, developing perfect ripeness and deep flavor, until they wrapped harvest on November 1st. 

A regimen of 20 months in 60% new French and Hungarian oak gave the 2018 Cabernet stunning polish and sophistication. The wine’s awash in aromas of blackberry, black cherry, and cassis, and the palate is rich and supple, with labyrinthine corridors of tobacco, chocolate, sweet spice, and oak. It’s showing beautiful concentration and density in its youth, and has the potential to age for more than a decade.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 14.90%
• 15 mins
• Now – 2035
• % Cabernet Sauvignon
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Cork