2012 Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Napa Valley 750 ml

Some Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons sell themselves. The 2012 Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville wine is not one of them.

It’s NOT a late-picked showboat designed to win a 100-point score. It’s not from a winery with a packed tasting room. But if you’ve ever gotten goosebumps from a graceful bottle of Spottswoode Estate Cabernet Sauvignon or a great vintage of Dalla Valle Maya—if you’ve ever swooned at the softness and intensity of a great Château Margaux or savored the gravelly power of Château Palmer—this wine will deliver for you.

Rosemary Cakebread is one of Napa’s most accomplished crafters of Cabernet Sauvignon, with over 40 harvests under her belt. She’s one of the reasons Spottswoode Winery—where she made wine for over a decade—enjoys such a stellar reputation.

The Gallica Oakville Cabernet is Cakebread’s passion project. Grown on the iconic Oakville Ranch high in the eastern part of the AVA, it shows what one of Napa’s most experienced winemakers can achieve with fruit from a legendary vineyard and one of the great vintages of all time.

Antonio Galloni of Vinous called the 2012 “strikingly beautiful” and “absolutely gorgeous” back in 2016. Now it’s got a 97-point score from Decanter, a decade of patient cellar-age on it—and Gallica released a tiny allocation of bottles to us, straight from the winery cellars. It’s an Oakville Grand Cru, pure and simple, and it will deliver perfect enjoyment over the next decade.