2018 Staglin Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Rutherford Napa Valley 750 ml

Staglin Family Vineyards has long produced impeccable wines from one of Napa Valley’s truly singular sites, and their 2018 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon might be their greatest bottle ever. 

In his glowing review, critic Jeb Dunnuck rated it 98+ points, calling it “utterly ultra-classic Rutherford Cabernet” and predicting a staggering cellar life of 40–50 years.

The Staglins tend a piece of Napa Valley history that goes back to 1864. Their property distinguished itself as a winegrowing site in 1962, when it was purchased by a family with marriage ties to Beaulieu Vineyard’s de Latour family. The legendary André Tchelistcheff, then the winemaker at BV, ordered the site to be planted with Bordeaux grapes, primarily Cabernet Sauvignon.

For the next two decades, grapes from this site went into BV’s famed Georges de Latour Private Reserve, blessing one of Napa Valley’s most sought-after bottlings with the ineffable quality known as “Rutherford dust.” When the Staglins purchased the site in 1985, Tchelistcheff (who’s credited with coining the term) shared his unique knowledge of the land with the new owners. Four decades later, their Napa Valley estate—set on its course by a true luminary, stewarded by legendary viticulturist David Abreu, and tested by time—stands with Oakville’s To Kalon as one of the greatest terroirs in the Valley. 

This 2018 Cabernet delivers the promise of the historic site as well as the Staglins’ meticulous care. Boasting a poised palate packed with black fruit, plums, and crushed raspberries, accented by sophisticated details of Oscuro tobacco, mint and bay leaves, shaved raw chocolate, and a dusting of espresso, it’s a layered masterpiece that will pay dividends in the cellar for decades.