Wine of the week: Laurel Glen Vineyard Counterpoint, 2019 Sonoma Mountain, Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon

An inheritance sealed Randall Watkins’ fate as a winemaker.

When Watkins was in his 20s, a friend of his inherited his grandfather’s wine cellar.

“When we opened up the 1982 Lafite Rothschild, it was a different experience than any cabernet I had tried before,” said Watkins, now the winemaker at Laurel Glen Vineyard in Glen Ellen. “The richness and the balance and the depth and the texture and the acidity and the ripeness and the savory (were) all in harmony.”

The lover of Bordeaux crafted our wine of the week winner — the Laurel Glen Vineyard Counterpoint, 2019 Sonoma Mountain, Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon, 14.5%, $60. It’s a striking cab with notes of cherry, plum, pomegranate and toast and an undercurrent of spice. Complex with a silky texture, it’s impressive.

Mountain-grown cabernet sauvignon like that of the Counterpoint tends to have deeper color and flavor due to the smaller grape size, Watkins said. The fruit was grown at a 1,000-foot elevation on an east-facing slope.

“Sonoma Mountain is a cooler place to grow cabernet than most other sites in California, leading to lower alcohol and higher natural acidity,” he said. “This keeps the wine tasting very fresh and also gives an energy to the wine. It bursts with both raspberry and ripe currant, a focused minerality and tannins that are firm, round and delicious.”

Watkins has been producing cabernet sauvignon for the past 29 years across California, including in Sonoma and Napa counties, and even as far away as Chile.

“Early on, I discovered that my favorite place for producing the style of cabernet sauvignon that I love to drink is in the mountains of Sonoma County,” he said.

Growing up on a small vineyard in Sonoma County, Watkins was immersed in wine culture as a child. In his 20s, he started working in vineyards, wine cellars and laboratories Now 53, he’s been the winemaker at Laurel Glen Vineyard for 12 years.

The Laurel Glen winery property was well-known as an excellent site for cabernet sauvignon even before the first vintage was produced in 1981, Watkins said.

The 14.5-acre vineyard was developed in the 1970s by Sonoma wine pioneer Patrick Campbell. Despite its small production, the Laurel Glen cabernet sauvignon quickly received international acclaim for its exceptional balance, elegance and ability to age gracefully, Watkins said. Among the wine’s most distinctive features are its supple tannins and longevity. It doesn’t display the typical massive gritty tannins of many California mountain-grown cabernets. Instead it shows a refinement and elegance more readily identified with European wines.

Starting in 1985, Laurel Glen Vineyard has produced both a Counterpoint and an estate cabernet sauvignon every year. The winery typically bottles about 1,400 cases of Counterpoint and 750 cases of estate cabernet sauvignon. In addition, they have bottled small amounts of sauvignon blanc and rosé each year since 2014.

“The goal with Laurel Glen has always been to produce a terroir-driven wine where excessive ripeness and oak don’t obscure the complex flavors of the mountain vineyard,” Watkins said. “The house style is a cabernet sauvignon with balance, smooth structure and longevity. The stylistic goal continues to be elegance without over-extraction, balance of acidity and fruit ripeness, finesse and ageability.”

You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pegmelnik.