2018 Domaine Curry Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

“Joe, I know exactly what you’re gonna ask,” John Schwartz said when we ran into him at TORC in downtown Napa. 

Then he took a sip of his Champagne and said, “And the answer is… maybe.” 

He smiled and left it there, and told us to call him the next day—which we did at 9:01 AM. 

We're thrilled to tell you that because of that phone call with one of Napa Valley’s major players—and about two and a half years of persistence—we’ve landed the newly released 2018 Domaine Curry Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s undoubtedly one of Napa Valley’s hottest and highest quality new Cabernets.

We’ve loved Ayesha Curry’s Domaine Curry Cabernet from the moment we tasted the 2015 debut—a wine whose 95 points from Wine Advocate put it in a league with Colgin’s first bottling—and when we swirled and sipped the as-yet-unrated 2018, it gave us the same excitement. In fact, hailing from an ideal season that afforded grapes two or three extra weeks of hang time, the ‘18 might just be this young Cabernet brand’s best bottle yet. 

Built on layers of gorgeous black and blue fruit, it’s got power and grace, along with a smooth mouthfeel of graphite-tinged cassis backed up by generous tannins. Great in its youth, it’s also built for a decade-plus of cellar life. 

We're big admirers of Ayesha Curry as an entrepreneur and creator of a fantastic brand, but at Wine Access, we’re not about the brand—we’re about what’s in the bottle, and Domaine Curry brings the kind of quality that we normally see in Cabernet at two and even three times the price. So at $100 per bottle, this is a great opportunity to get on board early.

Ayesha has a knack for partnering with the right people—like chef Michael Mina for her restaurant International Smoke—and she picked the right guy in CEO John Schwartz, the man we’ve been hounding from Carneros to Calistoga. John’s probably the first guy we’d call to start a high-end winery. He’s the driving force behind Napa’s renowned Coup de Foudre and the Heidi Barrett-crafted Amuse Bouche and Au Sommet labels. Everything he touches seems to turn to gold—something he and Ayesha have in common. 

They tapped Napa Valley industry veteran Kent Jarman—winemaker at Coup de Foudre and Kenefick Ranch—to craft the Domaine Curry Cabernet, a blend of 88% Cabernet, 8% Petit Verdot, and 2% each Cabernet Franc and Merlot that comes from vineyards in the up-valley Cabernet gold mine of Calistoga and the surrounding AVAs. It spends 18 months in French oak, giving it a beautiful kiss of sweet spice on the finish.

Ayesha, John, Kent and their team are building a mighty Cabernet project that I wanted in on from the beginning, and while the names are big, production isn’t—just over 400 cases were made of the 2018, which is why we're so happy we were finally able to score some for Wine Access members. Take one sip of the 2018, and you’ll know what got us on board from the start, and we bet you’ll be a fan of Domaine Curry for good.