2017 Massican Winery Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley Magnum (1.5 L) Magnum

Sourced from 25-year-old vines, Dan Petroski’s 2017 Massican Sauvignon Blanc  is one of the most clean, crisp, and characterful Sauvignon Blancs we’ve seen in California, and a chance to drink at home like you would at one of the world’s greatest restaurants. It’s a dazzling, Old-World-inspired white that is worthy of the winemaker who just placed a wine at #7 on Wine Enthusiast’s Enthusiast 100 Wines of 2019.

Massican Sauvignon Blanc spent years as a by-the-glass selection at The French Laundry, and it’s easy to see why: A pale, lemon-green color, it shows ultra-vibrant aromas of fresh lemon, grapefruit, and starfruit along with fresh herbs, yellow flowers, and a hint of flinty mineral. Dazzling on the palate, the forward punch of fresh citrus that leads the 2017 evolves into a more complex mélange of minerals and fresh herbs, with a lingering, crisp, dry finish. 

When we spoke to Dan recently, he told us how, in the early days of Massican, he’d intended to blend Sauvignon Blanc into his Annia white wine as an homage to one of his favorite Italian whites. But the fruit from the Juliana Vineyard in Napa’s Pope Valley, which originally supplied Robert Mondavi’s legendary Fumé Blanc, proved so excellent that it had to stand on its own. “There was too much aroma, flavor, structure, acidity, power,”  Dan said of his stellar vineyard source.

So Dan bottled the Sauvignon Blanc on its own. He showed it to a few people, including Dennis Kelly (now a Master Sommelier) of The French Laundry, who was so impressed he put it on the by-the-glass list. The peerless Yountville restaurant has now poured eight of ten vintages of Massican’s Sauv Blanc. 

In a decade of winemaking, the reception for Dan’s dazzling whites has been unanimous praise from winemakers, writers, and the whole professional wine world—he calls it “a big group hug,” and it has made Massican one of the must-have wines made in California. It went from its beginnings as “alt-new-California,” a term that basically describes wines that appeal to wine obsessives, to the Wine Spectator Top 100 and this year’s Wine Enthusiast Top 10—feats that show a rare amount of both consumer and critical love.

Fortunately, our friendship with Dan has secured us this allocation of his gorgeous, Old World-inspired Sauvignon Blanc. A beautiful and mouth-watering all-occasions white wine, this is one to claim before the whole world catches on, especially in magnum.