2019 Highlands Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Napa Valley 750 ml

Every Highlands Winery bottle we’ve shared with our members over the last seven years has sold out almost instantly. They’re some of the best-selling Cabs in Wine Access history, accruing hundreds of unbelievable member reviews and dozens of inquiries about when we’re getting more in stock.

This blockbuster 2019, authored by the legendary duo of Paul Segas and Dave Cofran, is an astounding Napa Cab. 800 total cases were made of this gentle giant, which is cloaked in a fine vanilla-tinged polish after 23 months in French oak. A base of classic Mayacamas mountain fruit refreshed by high-altitude winds gives this release the signature Highlands profile: huge, textural tannins that fill out a grandiose but precisely tuned structure. It could go another 15 years in the cellar or be the hit of a dinner party next week. 

A Napa veteran, Paul acquired top vineyards in the 1970s, and they earned him a roster of A-list clients like Joseph Phelps, Chateau Montelena, and Robert Mondavi. He partnered with Dave, and they’ve become some of the most consistent hit-makers in the Valley. Their specialty is extracting powerful concentration from alluvial, high-altitude mountain soils. 

“It’s the fog that made this wine as much as anything else,” Paul told us as we sipped a sample of the 2019 Reserve under a porch umbrella on a sunny July day. “The vintage gave us plenty of rain and midday heat with few spikes. Mornings stayed cool, the vineyards shrouded in gray mists that covered and protected the vines, as if Mother Nature wanted to work in secret,” he recalled. “Hangtime was spectacular, giving us exactly the color, structure, and intensity we were looking for.”