2014 Palazzo Right Bank Reserve Proprietary Red Wine Napa Valley 750 ml

We called winemaker Scott Palazzo out of the blue a few weeks ago, and it happened to be the perfect time. Because of the country’s unpredictable restaurant situation, a rare allocation of his flagship Right Bank Reserve Napa Valley—a red that’s been featured from Michelin-starred La Toque in Napa and Daniel in NYC to Commander’s Palace in New Orleans and Mastro’s in Las Vegas—had just come available. 

We saw it as the perfect chance to introduce Wine Access members to one of the most exquisite California reds we’ve ever tasted—one that has earned multiple 98-point scores from Robert Parker, who said Palazzo’s reds “are well-known among wine insiders, but probably not getting the notice among consumers that they merit.” 

This tiny-production, world-class red is not a household name among consumers because sommeliers claim most of it for themselves. Ever since chef Thomas Keller personally commissioned Scott to craft a by-the-glass red for The French Laundry, the top somms in the US have made Palazzo a mainstay in hundreds—truly, hundreds—of the nation's best restaurants. 

Right Bank Reserve is Palazzo’s flagship, and the 2014 shows off exactly what we and some of the top chefs and somms in the country love about the wines: It brings gorgeous ripeness into the kind of elegant package you expect from Napa Valley legends like Arietta and Dominus, or even from priceless Bordeaux collector’s items like Cheval Blanc. 

Deep purple in the glass, the Right Bank Reserve is layered with raspberry compote, crushed violets, and graphite, and accented by faint cedar shavings and licorice. The fleshy fruit is alive with minerality and carried by gorgeous tension, sliding into a muscular yet seductive finish smoothed over by several years in the bottle. 

Scott takes pride in making some of the food-friendliest red wines in Napa Valley, and in releasing them on their own time. This 2014 is the current release, and we’ve got the very last cases available. 

Scott’s got one of the coolest origin stories we’ve heard: When he was young, he went on a three-month guitar-and-backpack trip through Europe, and at the end, he found himself in Provence with no money. But he didn’t want to go home, and since he’d heard that you could make a few francs picking grapes in Bordeaux, he headed that way, landing in St.-Émilion.

“I love Merlot and Cab Franc, and that’s really where my palate got shaped,” he told us. Scott grew up in a family that poured humble but balanced and food-friendly wines at the dinner table, so the reds he encountered on Bordeaux’s Right Bank won him over. Decades later back in the US—after a long music-business detour that earned him a Grammy nomination—he headed to Napa to make wine. 

His first vintage was in 2003, when, as he puts it, “the whole cult Cab thing was taking off.” His friends told him he was crazy if he wasn’t going to make a Cabernet, but he resisted the pressure, and instead followed the taste he’d honed over decades. 

“This is my palate. No secret here. I love this style,” he said about ignoring the prevailing trend. “I wasn’t smart enough, or didn’t have enough money to do market research on ‘What’s America doing now?’” He then used the perfect metaphor to capture the foolishness of trying to keep up with fickle consumer tastes: “The wine industry is the Queen Mary,” he said. “It doesn’t turn quickly.” 

So Scott followed a simple plan: He would make something he loved, and quality would be everything. He also set out to answer the question: Could he make wines like those world-class Right Bank Bordeauxs that he’d experienced when he was younger?

Scott found the perfect vineyards in Carneros. “It really is the most Bordeaux-like. It gives me just wonderful fruit to work with.” He gets four to five weeks longer hangtime than he would in other parts of the valley, and since he doesn’t have to contend with up-valley heat, he doesn’t have to worry about his sugars skyrocketing. As for ripeness: “It’s got plenty of weight and texture. I’m in Napa. We don’t have a sun problem.” 

The result is a wine that puts Napa’s famed richness in a framework that might be impossible to attain in any appellation other than the one he chose. “Carneros is a great match for my style,” Scott said. “The vines get to shut down, the acid gets to come back up, and it gives it the structure and profile that I want.” 

The final step in achieving that profile is a Bordelaise élévage. Right Bank spends 15-16 months in French oak, but only 40% of it new, which gives the wine the weighty mid-palate that Scott likes, but none of the harsh wood tannins. He then holds the wine back in bottle, releasing it five years after harvest. 

The result is a beautiful Right Bank-style red that’s ready to drink right now, but fit for a decade or more in the cellar. It won us over from the first sip and had us marveling at the quality and the price—and we bet it will make a lifelong fan out of you.