Josh Cellars Hearth Cabernet Sauvignon California Red Wine

With Cabernet Sauvignon, the grape name alone cannot tell you the style. Regional authorities describe a firmly built red: noticeable tannin, spice when oak is involved, and dark fruit in the black currant and plum direction, with cherry cited too. By the same accounts, ripeness, climate and winemaking set where a bottle falls, from herbal and trim at one end to ripe and generously fruity at the other. Same grape, different conditions, different wine.

The place our record confirms is California. No smaller area appears in the evidence we hold. So far 91 shoppers have scored it. Their average, 4.67 out of five, is a reading on how the wine was received rather than on where it sits in the grape's range.

This bottling comes from Josh Cellars, a brand Joseph Carr started in 2007 for his father Josh, as the company tells it, and carries the name Hearth; no closer origin is in the evidence we hold, so California is all the geography this page can offer. In store checks on August 10 and 11, 2026, we found the bottle at $14.99 to $24.99 depending on the store.

The name has its own explanation: Josh Cellars describes Hearth as a wine 'created for at-home gatherings with family and close friends,' its own phrase for the fireside occasion the name points to, with what the producer calls dark fruit flavors in a full-bodied, jammy style. Winemaking for the Josh Cellars portfolio has been led by Wayne Donaldson since 2009, the producer says, and the company credits him with 90-plus scores on other bottlings in its lineup, recognition the evidence we hold does not tie to Hearth specifically.

Our call: this one suits the shopper who already trusts the Josh name. The rating pool behind it is one of the larger we track, and the same winemaker, the producer says, has led the portfolio since 2009. Pass if you want the bottle to argue for itself beyond the brand; the origin never narrows past California, and the evidence we hold does not tie Hearth to the scores the producer cites for its other bottlings, so the brand's reputation is carrying more of this choice than the wine's own record.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Aug 17, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.