Lokoya Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder 2018 750ml

Always one of the standouts from Carpenter, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder is another flat-out awesome wine that couldn’t be better. Revealing a dense purple color as well as extraordinary notes of crème de cassis, blueberries, mountain scrub brush, graphite, violets, and cedar pencil, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, layers of ripe, seamless tannins (it’s a mountain Cabernet), a beautiful sense of freshness, and a great, great finish. This is one for the ages. It needs 7–8 years of bottle age, but it will be one of the great Napa Cabernets over the following 50 years or more. (Jeb Dunnuck)

Blackberries, herbs, green pine needles, blackcurrants and lead pencil. Full-bodied with incredible structure and powerful tannins. It goes on for minutes. The structure is something else. Muscular, but the tannins give form and focus to the beautiful fruit. Mountain-grown Latour! Extraordinary. Try after 2026. (James Suckling)

Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder was aged in French oak barrels for 22 months, 94% new. Deep garnet-purple colored, it soars out of the glass with vivacious scents of black cherries, black raspberries and black currant pastilles, followed by nuances of pencil shavings, tilled earth, lilacs and underbrush plus a waft of crushed rocks. The full-bodied palate is taut, packed with muscular, impactful black fruits, featuring a rock-solid backbone of firm, grainy tannins, finishing with a whole firework display of earthy/minerally sparks. Give it a good 4–5 years in bottle and drink it for the next 25+ years. 1,327 cases were made.

Packed with fruit, this dense version is nonetheless vivid and full of energy, with plum pâte de fruit, açaí reduction and boysenberry preserves flavors streaming through, carried by a graphite note, all while an invigorating licorice snap and floral streak work throughout. A great racy iron note at the very end carries it all through the encore. Built to last. Best from 2023 through 2038. 1,327 cases made. (James Molesworth)