2015 Larkmead Proprietary Red Napa Valley 750 ml

Cabernet from the Top of My List

Ever since I started at Wine Access, I’ve been lucky enough to be steeped in top-end Cab, and taste the greatest red wines California has to offer. For the past two years, we’ve kept a running list of the Cabernets we’d most love to bring to Wine Access members—an all-star lineup of must-have reds. No matter who’s building our ultimate Cab list, one winery has come up so often that it’s earned a unanimous place at the top: Larkmead. 

Larkmead and their winemaker, 2017 San Francisco Chronicle Winemaker of the Year Dan Petroski, produce some of the finest Cabernet in Napa Valley, and today I am thrilled to offer the 2015 Larkmead Cellars Proprietary Red, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and our very first allocation from this historic vineyard. It delivers both an iconic winery and one of Napa Valley’s most immensely talented winemakers in a single bottle. Normally, this exclusive Cabernet is only available to Larkmead’s mailing list, but thanks to our direct connection with the estate (and obsession with their robust, peerless Cabernets) we’ve secured a small allocation for our mailing list. 

Larkmead is an MVP among our wine team—not to mention one of our Head of Wine Vanessa Conlin’s all-time favorites—so I was pumped to join her on a recent visit to Dan at the estate. Founded in 1895, it’s one of the most historic and revered properties in Napa Valley: Esther Mobley of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as “110 acres of prime Calistoga vineyard land, sandwiched between the Mayacamas and Vaca ranges… (which get) the best influences of both mountains’ benchlands.” In his time as winemaker, Dan has elevated the Larkmead wines, producing a 100-point wine in his first full season as winemaker. Since then, his work at Larkmead and his own Massican winery have made him one of the most decorated winemakers in Napa Valley.

Dan’s 100-point, The Lark, Larkmead Cabernet, grown on the estate, goes for $350. The 100% Cabernet 2015 Larkmead Cellars Proprietary Red hails from the same priceless Calistoga terroir (and a 97-point Napa Valley vintage), and it’s just $75 per bottle. It’s a dark, crimson-ruby color, and bursting with black currant and black cherry fruit, as well as aromas of vanilla, pipe tobacco, sweet spice, and violets. It’s dense and full on the palate, with black cherry, chocolate, and baking spice, all leading to a lingering sweet tobacco note and fine-grained tannins on the finish. This is an approachable Napa Cab from a master, and it will evolve beautifully over the next decade.

Secure your bottles now. 

Dan told us how at Larkmead, they plant vines assuming that they won’t work with them until they are ten years old (twice as long as most Napa wineries), when they start to show the complexity and nuance that’s the Larkmead signature. 

He made the perfect analogy: “Kids think they’re the most interesting thing in the world. But only when you’re older—when you live through marriages, divorces, broken noses—do you truly become interesting. When a grapevine lives through drought, hail, wildfires, that’s when it becomes interesting. There’s this tipping point when a young vine becomes an old vine.”

I asked Dan about how the 97-point 2015 Napa Valley vintage, which was a critic favorite, influenced the 2015 Proprietary Red. “That was the first year of that drought streak that was more on the fruit-forward side,” he said. “2015’s classic California sunshine and drought conditions gave low-yielding, fruit-dominated wine with power, to make a classic modern-style Napa Valley Cabernet.”

“My goal is always to pay respect to the vintage, and also to the vineyard—to taste the vineyard through the vintage. The 2015 is great. There’s classicism to this wine, it’s a modern Napa Valley Cabernet with nice bit of restraint.”

More than that, it’s a modern Cabernet from one of the most historic estates and decorated winemakers in the Valley. I can’t wait for you to taste Dan’s Larkmead Cabernet. One sip and you’ll know why Larkmead and Dan Petroski have long topped our list, and why I am thrilled to finally bring them to you.