2015 Beringer Vineyards Distinction Series Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Few Napa wines are as iconic as Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, as many of you reconfirmed when you snapped up the limited 99-point 2015 we offered earlier this year. The #24 wine on James Suckling’s Top 100 Wines of the World 2018, it’s worth every penny of its $170 retail price (let alone our $135).

From the very same vintage, vineyard, and winemaking prodigy, we have the Private Reserve’s $40 little brother: The 2015 Beringer Vineyards Distinction Series Cabernet Sauvignon.

Saturated with an inky ruby-black hue, aromas of freshly baked cassis, blackberry compote, black cherry, and cream immediately fill the air with a single swirl. Beringer’s textbook markers of Madagascar vanilla, raw chocolate, and organic upturned earth are heightened with the added drama of campfire smoke and spice. Expansive, plush, and supple on entry, the gentle, refined tannic grip helps carry the dark black fruit density, leading the charge all the way through the long, silky finish.

Though our price is about 1/4 its Private Reserve sibling, this Cabernet comes from the very same prestigious mountain vineyards and hillside benches. In 2015, the largest portion of this Distinction Series Cab came from the Bancroft Ranch and Steinhauer Vineyard in the Howell Mountain AVA—the two Beringer vineyards that also make up the majority of the Private Reserve. It should come as no surprise that both wines are defined by the same polished edges.

Aside from its price, the Distinction Series Cabernet has one key feature that sets it apart. While the Private Reserve is built for decades in the cellar, its younger sibling is designed to drink perfectly now (though it will age beautifully for another fifteen years).

The 2015 vintage marks the homecoming of an heir. Mark Beringer, the great-great-grandson of one of Beringer’s co-founding brothers, took the helm of the estate as winemaker that year and immediately wrote himself into the winery’s legacy with dazzling Cabernets at every tier.

The Beringer family pioneered Napa Valley in 1876, when brothers Jacob and Frederick left their home in Germany to settle 215 acres of rocky, fertile soil in Napa Valley. Constant innovators, the family led the Napa hospitality tradition as the first Napa winery to open its doors in the public in the 1930s.

Returning to the vineyards that his family first cultivated generations ago, 2015 showed Mark’s complete mastery of the house style that has twice earned Beringer the #1 Wine of the Year honor from Wine Spectator.

Cabernet thrives in stressful conditions, and 2015’s drought vintage in Napa Valley resulted in dense berries packed with flavor. For this wine, Mark selected lots from his estate’s most prized mountain and valley vineyards: The Howell Mountain grapes lend the wine its spicy sandalwood and cedar tones interwoven with black hillside fruit, while generous sunshine and the iron soils in St. Helena’s Home Vineyard nourished the ripeness that translates into its velvety mouthfeel.

There are just a handful of Napa producers that can lay claim to the valley’s origin story, and fewer still who can still wow the critics after nearly a century and a half, yet Robert M. Parker Jr. himself has praised Beringer’s wines as “exceptionally impressive.” Mark is continuing that streak with this outstanding 2015 Cabernet from the family-owned vineyards that are part and parcel of the Beringer name.

All the Napa Valley heritage for a quarter the price—our exclusive on this wine is as exceptional as it gets with legacy Napa Valley producers like this.