Decoy Cabernet Sauvignon

The words on the front, Cabernet Sauvignon, name the grape and start to tell you how the wine is built. Guides that describe Cabernet Sauvignon call it a grape that often makes firmly built reds and turns up in many blends. They point to black currant, cherry and plum as fruit flavors that commonly come up, with noticeable tannin and, where oak is used, possible spice. Those guides add that ripeness, the climate where the vines grow, and choices in the winery can steer it toward the lean and herbal or the ripe and full of fruit. 2 shoppers have rated it, averaging 5 out of five, which is above the 4.71 median.

Decoy's own account adds a name to the brand history: Dan and Margaret Duckhorn founded it, and winemaking today is led by Dana Epperson, a third-generation Sonoma County native. Decoy's winemaking page describes her approach as small-lot care applied at scale, up to 150 individual fermentations a year, many in five-ton lots, with hand sorting, open-top punch-downs, and stirring the wine while it rests on its spent yeast to build texture. The producer's own tasting note for this Cabernet Sauvignon describes "dark cherry, raspberry, baking spice, cola, and subtle toasty oak" on the nose, the maker's words, with "silky tannins" and "bright acidity" on the palate. One gap is worth naming: the winemaking page also describes Decoy's broader Sonoma County sourcing, including Bordeaux varieties from Alexander Valley, but that detail covers the wider portfolio; the product page for this bottle lists its origin simply as California, so the Alexander Valley fruit is not confirmed to be in this specific wine.

If you are weighing a few California Cabernets and want one with some years behind the name, this is a fair pick. Our September 2026 checks put the lowest observed price at $21.99 and the highest at $29.99. Decoy says the brand was founded in 1985 and became a stand-alone winery in 2008, which describes the company rather than this one bottling.

Our call: a solid reach for a shopper buying the Duckhorn family's second label on its winemaking account, small-lot fermentations, hand sorting and time on the spent yeast, at a price well under its famous sibling. Pass if you want this bottle's exact sourcing on paper; the producer's page does not pin this wine's appellation, and two perfect scores are a start, not a record.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Sep 16, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.