2018 Concept Album Mixtape Red Blend Napa Valley 750 ml

In the cool breezes of Napa Valley’s Carneros AVA sits one of the most acclaimed vineyards in California. An NDA prevents us from naming it, but you know it—the site has attracted superstars like Paul Hobbs, Aubert, Kongsgaard, Ramey, and DuMol. 

This spot produces some of Napa Valley’s finest, lushest, silkiest Bordeaux grapes. It’s fruit that some of the Valley’s top winemakers use in their most elegant blends—and many more would kill to get their hands on. 

Enter our friend, a 100-point rockstar winemaker who spent two decades at Robert Mondavi Winery. He crafts a $75+ Merlot from this site every year, and in the beautiful and bountiful 2018 vintage, he lucked into a little more fruit than usual. 

The best thing for our friend’s bottom line would have been to increase the production of his single-site bottle. But he’s always had a stubborn streak, so he made the wine he’s always wanted to make.

This is the kind of seamless red that only a veteran Napa winemaker could source and deliver, and sipping it with him got us going on the musical analogies. We likened it to Metallica’s “Unforgiven,” with Merlot providing the acoustic intro to fully plugged-in Petit Verdot power. He thought it was more like playing a stripped-down ballad right before a full-on rocker that could blow out a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls—which is where the Concept Album Mixtape name came from. 

As a tribute to the blend and our friend’s DIY nature, a vintage cassette tape adorns the label. There’s no better way to convey a unique and handcrafted package—one that contains the best of a great vintage, brought to you by a seasoned pro.