Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc 2024- Fresh Flavors, Prices, and Bottle Specs

As a sommelier with over 7 years of experience recommending and serving fine wines at upscale restaurants in Napa Valley. I always eagerly await the newest vintage release from Cakebread Cellars. This venerable Napa winery consistently delivers bright, complex wines with a sense of place that showcase the beautiful terroir of the region.

The 2024 Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc is no exception. Recently sampled at an industry preview event, I found it light, crisp, and bursting with lively citrus and tropical fruit flavors balanced by a mineral-laced backbone. As a wine professional who has followed multiple vintages of this wine. I can attest the 2024 vintage shows the classic Cakebread style with perhaps a touch more vibrancy and fruit intensity compared to previous years.

In this blog post, I’ll share my tasting notes on the 2024 Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc along with some background on the winemaking and what makes this bottling unique. As a highly allocated wine that sells out quickly every year, I’ll also include expected release timing, pricing, and bottle specs for wine enthusiasts eager to secure some of this world-class Sauvignon Blanc.

Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc 2024 Tasting Notes

I recently sampled the 2024 Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc prior to its official release at an industry trade event. As a fan of this wine and having followed it for several vintages, I found the 2024 showed the vibrant fruit, racy acidity, and flinty, stony minerality that makes it a benchmark for Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc.

My tasting notes:

• Appearance: Pale straw yellow with green highlights, very clear
• Aroma: Bursting with lime zest, white grapefruit, green melon, and hints of fresh-cut grass and flint
• Palate: Medium-bodied, crisp and lively. Flavors of Meyer lemon, pink grapefruit, white nectarine, and gooseberry mingle with wet stone, chalk, and a touch of herbs on the lingering finish. Racy acidity balances the fruit.

Summary: A beautifully balanced, complex Sauvignon Blanc that epitomizes the Cakebread house style. Vibrant fruit meets minerality in a refreshing, food-friendly package.

As a sommelier, I appreciate the versatility of this wine at the table. Its vibrant acidity can cut through and complement dishes from salads and light seafood to poultry and vegetarian cuisine. I’d happily pair it with anything from ceviche and oysters on the half shell to pan-seared halibut or even herb-roasted chicken. Its balance between ripe fruit and crisp minerality gives it very broad pairing potential.

Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Winemaking

Far Niente has a long history of excellence with Sauvignon Blanc. As one of the early proponents of Bordeaux-style Sauvignon Blanc in Napa Valley in the late 1970s, they have perfected a style that balances vibrant fruit intensity with a strong mineral spine.

Winemaker Julianne Laks works closely with the winery’s vineyard team to source the best Sauvignon Blanc lots from the family’s estate vineyards as well as trusted grower partners. The grapes for this bottling come primarily from the cooler American Canyon and Carneros AVAs, where morning fog and breezes from San Pablo Bay preserve acidity and fresh flavors.

The wine is 100% Sauvignon Blanc fermented and aged 8 months entirely in stainless steel and concrete eggs to retain purity of flavors. Skilled winemaking preserves the grapes’ natural vibrancy resulting in a Sauvignon Blanc that’s fruit-forward yet grounded by a strong mineral core.

What Makes This Wine Unique?

Beyond the renowned Cakebread pedigree, several factors make this Sauvignon Blanc truly unique:

• Sense of Place – The grapes hail primarily from estate vineyards in American Canyon and Carneros, which lend a distinctive regional stamp through their cool climate and mineral-laden soils. Compared to New Zealand styles, this Sauvignon has riper stone and tropical fruits balanced by herbaceous notes.
• Winemaking – While emphasizing fruit vibrancy, winemaker Julianne Laks leverages concrete egg fermentation and aging to provide texture and minerality not found in stainless steel alone. This sets it apart from many other Napa Sauvignon Blancs.
• Allocation – As a small production bottling (around 4,500 cases), this wine sells out very quickly through the winery’s allocation list and high-end restaurants. Unlike mass-market Sauvignon Blancs, its exclusivity adds to its cache.

I view Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc as one of the top examples of the variety coming out of Napa. Beyond its refined balance, the fact that it disappears off shelves and wine lists shortly after release every year speaks to its coveted status.

2024 Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Release Details

Based on previous vintages, the 2024 Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc will likely be released on a limited basis in early 2025. As an allocated wine, I recommend getting on the winery’s mailing list or securing a spot on a restaurant allocation list to get first access.

Expected retail pricing is $32 per 750ml bottle. That puts it at the high-end of Napa Sauvignon Blancs but this wine over-delivers on quality, It is very competitively priced within the fine wine segment. For those with patience, magnums of older vintages pop up at auction and often sell around 1.5x the standard 750ml bottle price.

The bottling specs:

• Average Alcohol: 14.1%
• 100% Sauvignon Blanc
• 100% Napa Valley fruit, primarily American Canyon and Carneros AVAs
• Stainless steel and concrete egg fermentation/aging
• Cases Produced: Approximately 4,500

While not an inexpensive daily drinker, the Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc delivers a textbook example of complex, terroir-driven Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. For fans of the variety, it’s a wonderfully vibrant expression that I enthusiastically recommend. The balance, intensity of flavors, and minerality place it among the top examples coming out of Napa.

I hope you’ll grab a bottle of the 2024 vintage when it’s released next year. Please let me know in the comments if you have any other questions!

For more updates on wine trends, check out our article on Emerging Wine Trends in 2024-Unique Varietals and Regions to Watch