2017 Frog's Leap Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 750 ml

Estate-grown, hailing from some of the most renowned real estate in Napa Valley, and sporting a 95-point score from Vinous, the 2017 Frog's Leap Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford has a résumé that more than justifies a triple-digit sticker price.  

That’s why Antonio Galloni, in his glowing review of the “gorgeous” 2017, called Frog’s Leap winery “an under the radar gem in today's Napa Valley”: Of the 30-plus 2017 Napa Cabernets that earned 95 points from Vinous, Frog’s Leap has every last one beat on price, sitting alongside Rutherford gems like Inglenook Rubicon and Frank Family Patriarch. Those wines are $210 and $225. Frog’s Leap is $60.  

Enchanting from the outset, the deep ruby wine sings with its Rutherford provenance, showing dusty red cherry, dried roses, cedar, and tobacco. Full of dark red fruits, chocolate, and mint, this is not an inky-black blockbuster that will bowl you over with sheer power, but a seductive Napa Valley stunner that pays homage to the classic Napa style, all at a price that many thought was history in Napa Valley. 

When it comes to emblematic pioneers in the Napa Valley, Frog’s Leap Winery sits alongside Robert Mondavi and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. The leading players and events involved in the making and shaping of Frog’s Leap reads like a fairytale: Larry Turley was a founder along with still-owner John Williams; Warren Winiarski taught Williams to make wine; there were parties at Mustards Grill (when it opened); Williams was kicked off the set of Falcon’s Crest, and a hundred other stories and impressive factors have contributed to one of the Valley’s greatest successes.   

For decades, Frog’s Leap has been well-known for producing stellar Cabernet from the broader Napa Valley, but their Estate Grown Cabernet is a new phenomenon. First bottled in 2012, more than thirty years after the winery’s founding, it’s the culmination of a dream inspired by the legendary Rutherford-raised Cabernets of Beaulieu Vineyard and Inglenook. 

The pieces for the Estate Grown Cabernet started falling into place in 1995, when Frog’s Leap officially moved to Rutherford, purchasing their now-iconic Red Barn and its 40 acres of vineyard land. Just over a decade later, they acquired the Rossi Vineyard, a 52-acre parcel on the Rutherford Bench that was a key source for Charles Krug and Robert Mondavi in the 50s and 60s. The two sites, plus their longtime source of the Chavez & Leeds vineyard, gave Frog’s Leap the raw material for the Rutherford Estate Cabernet they’d had their sights set on for years. 

Always dry-farmed, always organic, this Cabernet sticks to the protocols that have made Frog’s Leap an outlier since its inception. After 20 months in French oak, it is a paragon of the classic Napa Cabernet style, an estate-grown bottle that brings down rivals that cost many times more. Napa Cabernet buys don’t get much smarter.