Tasting Notes
This Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles is bold and generous, with intriguing depth and loads of California charisma. Layers of sun-kissed wild blackberries alternate with boysenberry jam, dried bay leaf, and dark chocolate.
A New Wine Adventure from the Cakebread Family
Drawing on our 50+ years of experience at Cakebread Cellars, we craft Central Coast wines as complex and charismatic as the people who share them. Who says your everyday glass can’t be extraordinary, too?
Bezel Wines explore the parts of California wine country that are off the beaten track and full of fresh ideas. With 50 vintages behind us at Cakebread, we’ve got the winemaking chops to handle the ride. In jewelry making, a bezel is the grooved setting that secures a gem or watchface in place. The name speaks to the craftsmanship behind every bottle of Bezel wine – the skill, precision and experience we’ve honed through 50 years of winemaking at Cakebread, and brought to the Central Coast.
We source all the fruit for Bezel Wines from California’s Central Coast. This up-and-coming wine region runs along the Pacific coast from the Santa Cruz Mountains in the north all the way south to Santa Barbara. Along the way, it includes some seriously amazing vineyards around Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo, among many other places.
The Central Coast’s long growing season and cool ocean breezes produce grapes with bright fruit and complex aromas. But certain sub-regions bring their own special flavor and personality. For Bezel, we seek out those hidden gems and put them front and center where they can really shine.
About Cakebread Winery
Our family’s story began with a 22-acre parcel of land in Rutherford that Jack Cakebread first secured with his $2,500 photography commission. Yet our pursuit of prime vineyard sites didn’t end there. Over the years we’ve added to our family’s estate vineyard collection throughout Napa Valley and Anderson Valley, totaling 15 vineyards or 1,600 acres, nearly 600 of which are planted to vine. Representing an array of cooler and warmer sites along both the valley floor and steep hillsides, each site lends a distinct personality to our wines, giving us greater diversity, complexity and unparalleled quality.
At Cakebread Cellars, we embrace environmental responsibility with green practices that range from sustainable and organic farming and diligent water/energy conservation to extensive recycling operations (nearly 90% of winery-generated waste). We are proud to have been an early industry leader in these efforts. In fact, Cakebread Cellars was only the second California winery to achieve Napa Green certification; we’re also certified as Fish Friendly and participate in the Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing program.
Quality and sustainability have been Cakebread cornerstones since our first vintage in 1973. We’re a family winery, and we want to protect the land for future generations. -Bruce Cakebread
Sustainable vineyard practices include: monitoring for soil moisture and vine stress to determine irrigation needs; precise irrigation and mulching to reduce evaporation during irrigation; soil and nutrient management to maintain vineyard health, including composting, reducing herbicide use, avoiding synthetic fertilizers, properly managing pH, and applying microbials to improve vine balance. Our integrated pest management program encourages falcons for bird control and canopy management for disease control; as well as block by block monitoring to catch any issues before they have the chance to progress. We’re also committed to farming with as little impact as possible on the ecosystem. This includes documenting wildlife populations, limiting tree removal, establishing wildlife corridors, reducing run-off, protecting stream channels and planting native grasses. We are acquiring electric tractors for use in the vineyard and working to reduce the number of passes these tractors make each year.
