2016 Skryne Road Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

The first thing to know about this Napa stunner is that it’s basically sold out everywhere else. It’s typically been offered at roughly triple the price, but that’s beside the point when you can’t even find it in the first place. The 2016 Skryne Road Cabernet Sauvignon is complex, but not complicated: Pure, voluptuous New World opulence, bracketed with oak-laced tannins and loaded with spice, blackberry, and dark chocolate tends to go fast even at $110. Our bottle price today of $55 from the most expensive viticultural real estate in the U.S. might cause you to look askance at our math. Let us explain.

A friend of ours in Napa had a couple of cases of this best-seller to move, and we wanted this wine bad. We proposed the following terms: If we beat him at his favorite game, chess, he’d give us the rest of what he had at $40 plus a sweet case deal—virtually unheard of for a Napa Cabernet of this quality. If we lost, we’d get it at basically triple that price, just like everyone else.

We didn’t mention our past as captain of the chess club in high school. But even if we had, it probably wouldn’t have fazed him. He was, it turned out, a formidable opponent. We set up at a marble board on the veranda of his expansive property on the outskirts of Saint Helena. He poured us each a glass of this 2016 Skryne and lit up a Macanudo Prince Phillip. The wine uncoiled slowly in the Zalto glasses, releasing rich, sappy notes of ripe red and blackberries and holiday spice—all the motivation we needed.  

Playing white, we came out with pawn to e4. He responded with the Sicilian defense, opening with a pawn to c5. We moved our knight to f3, readying a King’s Indian attack. The game developed quickly from there as we worked to control the center of the board and strike hard at any weaknesses. After a skirmish and an exchange, we got pressure on his king side with a pawn to e5 and a knight threatening to follow. When he played his knight to a5, we smelled blood and prepared to unleash a blistering attack on his king side with a knight to g3 followed by a march of pawns. We hammered away at the fortress around his king on g7; moving a knight to f6 and queen to h7 got him in a pincer hold that forced him to resign.

He glared at the board through a cloud of cigar smoke. “Did we say $55 a bottle?”

No. The deal had been $40, we reminded him. Meticulously crafted by winemaker Barb Spelletich, you can practically taste the freshly tilled soil in this luscious Cabernet, a signature of the Napa vintage that Vinous called second only to 2013 in greatness. We challenge you to find a better deal on what was originally a three-digit bottle. Bet you a chess game for it.