2015 Casa Piena Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

In football, you take Mahomes or Hurts. In hoops, Steph or LeBron. And in Napa Valley, when you’ve got your pick of the world’s top talent, you take TRB.

The legendary winemaker behind Schrader, Rivers-Marie, and Outpost—not to mention innumerable 100-point wines—Thomas Rivers Brown is the most decorated and in-demand talent in Napa Valley. That’s why he was former 49ers executive Carmen Policy’s choice to head up Casa Piena, and why the result is as sure as a Montana-to-Rice post pattern.

TRB’s 2015 Casa Piena Cabernet Sauvignon is a massive score, straight from the cellars of Carmen and Gail Policy. Grown in the absolutely phenomenal 2015 season on the 14-acre Casa Piena estate in Yountville—which sits in view of the Stags Leap Palisades and is managed by yet another legend, Jim Barbour—it’s one of the most stunning under-the-radar bottles we’ve tasted from Napa Valley. 

Carmen—who has a reputation as one of the nicest men in the Napa Valley—has always had a knack for team-building. A trial lawyer by training, he transitioned to leadership in the NFL through his client, Eddie deBartolo Jr. Together they led the San Francisco 49ers to five Super Bowl victories over more than a decade. 

In 2001, Carmen and Gail bought a 14-acre vineyard near Kapscandy’s State Lane Vineyard in Yountville, and in 2003, they brought on Barbour and Brown, who has an amazing ability to coax so much finesse from Napa Valley’s ripe, powerful fruit. That came in handy with the 2015 Casa Piena—the product of a warm, thoroughly ripe vintage, and now, after several years in a cool cellar, the wine is paying dividends.