2015 Editorial Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Serious journalists will protect the anonymity of their sources all the way to the grave. Maybe that’s why our friend, a Napa newspaper writer with the best Rolodex in town, has ended up putting us onto leads for some of the biggest bombshell Napa deals we’ve seen in years. Folks know he’s good for a secret.

We’ve got to keep this one a secret too, even as it drives us up a wall that we can’t share the full magnitude of what a steal it is. But if we told you who actually made today’s rare back-vintage Cabernet, you’d want to tell someone else. 

The grower is a Rutherford icon: They’ve supplied award-winning grapes to Caymus, sit within a stone’s throw of $200-per-bottle properties like Quintessa and Round Pond, and capture a rich lusciousness in their wines that Robert Parker has compared to top Right Bank Pomerol.

With the benefit of additional cellar aging, unveiling fine, tertiary hits of leather and pipe tobacco, the glossy opulence here stuns for the price. For a wine that normally costs $121, but is far less today, you might want to hit buy first, then read on. These Editorial wines, named as a nod to our friend, have a past of selling out very fast, and we only have 100 cases.

From:  ______________@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, February 1st, 2021 8:34 AM

To: Vanessa Conlin __________@wineaccess.com>

Subject: Re: FW: Back vintage discovery

Vanessa,

The greatest interviewers have a trick: ask a question and shut up. Stay quiet long enough, and as often as not, you’ll get the answer you’re looking for.

So I was prepared to let the awkward silence hang in the room until my friend, who was sharing a deep line-up of 2015 Napa Cabernets, fessed up on where the final bottle had come from. It was unlabeled, intoxicatingly rich, blanketing a mocha-tinged blackberry core in satiny tannins, and closing with intense espresso—unlike anything else I had tasted from the vintage in its vividness and power.

“It’s a one-off bottle, not even for sale!” he pleaded.

I examined my fingernails. A half-hour later, I had a phone number.

The winemaker, one of Napa’s best-known power players, agreed to meet me. His outfit spoke to his dual roles: the perfectly ironed, crisp, white shirt of a successful executive, and the mud-caked Blundstones of a farmer. As we walked to the patio, I explained I wanted to know why the mystery cuvée I’d sampled wasn’t like the hundreds of other 2015 Cabs I’d tasted.  

“To tell you that, I have to make you a sandwich,” he said. “Two, actually.” He disappeared inside and reappeared ten minutes later with identical-looking BLTs. The first was perfectly acceptable. The second sent my tastebuds into hyperdrive: bright acidity, gushing juiciness, a touch of sweetness.

The first was made with a supermarket tomato, he explained. The second with a Goose Creek cultivar, a California heirloom tomato grown organically on the estate.

“The vines that made the wine you tasted are the equivalent of an heirloom like this—gnarled, old, and producing a rare clone, occupying a fraction-sized block of our 70 acres.” While complexity, intensity, and concentration were off-the-charts, the output was so small, he rarely did much with it other than blending some into their $100+ flagship release.

But the grapes produced in 2015 were so spectacular, the winemaker decided to press the block selection and put it aside. It was a time bomb—too tightly coiled for a normal release, but ready to explode in six or seven years.

I had tasted the explosion, and it was unforgettable. The same gravelly-loam Rutherford soils that give Caymus and Scarecrow wines their three-digit pedigree had created freshness and extraction here, but with a certain wild energy born of the block’s unique vines.

I’d noticed the winemaker sizing me up as we talked. He’d been looking for someone who could keep a secret while making a connection. He didn’t want to mess up the demand cycle for their annual Cabernet release, but he also knew this wine was too good not to share. If a seller could guarantee their name would stay out of it…

I said I knew the right people. For a deal this good, they’d stay mum too.

Best,

T.

This is a one-of-a-kind, back-vintage release we don’t expect to ever see again. As rare as it is to scoop $121 quality for a fourth of the price, rarer still is this wine’s bold, singular expression of one of Napa’s best vintages.