A $35 red from a gorgeous $250 Napa Valley estate
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2019 Word Choice Red Wine Napa Valley 750 ml
- Curated by unrivaled experts
- Choose your delivery date
- Temperature controlled shipping options
- Get credited back if a wine fails to impress
A High-Flying Vintage
Our friend, a 100-point star who spent 20 years at Robert Mondavi Winery, had it all: a mid-Valley winery whose triple-digit wines sell like clockwork to a loyal mailing list, a bustling tasting room packed with tourists and locals alike, and a network of vineyards that supplied him with the finest fruit from the top vineyards and appellations in the Valley.
But he wanted to fly higher.
Happy with his success but harboring a deep desire to craft wines he’d raised on his own soil, he turned his focus to his own estate wines—and 2019 was the year his gorgeously manicured home vineyards came online. All of a sudden, he was managing a huge variable: What kind of bounty would Mother Nature deliver to him?
In 2019, she was feeling quite generous, a vintage that no less than Thomas Rivers Brown believes tops the phenomenal 2018. Our friend’s vineyards supplied him with a gorgeous crop of some of the plushest, more characterful Cabernet Franc and Merlot you can imagine. Of course, he still had his normal contracts—Cabernet from a prime vineyard in Oakville, Merlot and Cabernet Franc from a top Carneros site—and that shook up his normal lineup.
When all was said and done, he had a few barrels left over, and no desire to make a brand-new bottling. So he called us.
Ruby-red, bursting with aromas of ripe Damson plums, baked cherry compote, chipped graphite, and vanilla, the 2019 Word Choice Red Wine is plush and well-knit on the palate, with juicy acidity and smooth tannins making for a seamless experience. It was a hairsbreadth from being in a $125 bottle, and it shows in every sip.