2017 Rutherford Hill Cellar Master's Tribute Red Wine Napa Valley 750 ml

We didn’t have much to go on at first—not even the winery’s name. But the few tantalizing details we’d been able to scrape together from an industry source had us speeding up Silverado Trail, glad to have a full tank of gas.

We knew it was a specialized allocation from one of the foundational estates of the famed Rutherford AVA—the last remaining bottles of a coveted, limited-edition, 300-case cuvée.

This estate is practically Rutherford royalty, situated in immediate proximity to Hall’s $350-per-bottle Sacrashe vineyard, Dakota Shy, and Quintessa. Their Cellar Master’s Tribute—crafted in honor of a late, beloved veteran employee—combines Merlot and Cabernet grapes from some of their finest lots, aged 18 months in French oak.

It drinks like Pomerol if Pomerol had the concentrated warmth of Northern California. A wine this limited in production is usually among the first to get snapped up by restaurant buyers—and that was the original plan for it until the deal fell apart and we stepped in to make an 11th-hour steal at WAY below the usual list price.

Rutherford Hill, founded in 1972, is among the oldest continually operating wineries in Napa. You might be able to deduce that, given the prime real estate they locked up early just off Silverado Trail, on a hill in the Rutherford AVA blessed with well-draining gravel soils and abundant sunshine.

This Merlot-forward blend is made to deliver pleasure in the short term and deepening complexity for those with patience. After a few years in bottle, it’s already showing beautifully—an unbelievable cellar reward that we were thrilled to find.