2021 Marietta Cellars Game Trail Cabernet Sauvignon Yorkville Highlands 750 ml

Founded in 1978 by Chris Bilbro, now in the hands of his sons, Jake and Scot, Marietta has focused on quality at reasonable pricing from the very beginning. They started with their spectacular Old Vine Red, a “mixed blacks” blend that quickly became a company calling card.

Today the winery owns and farms 400 acres of their own vines organically. They have a year-round team of dedicated vineyard and winery workers, most of whom have worked for them for decades.

The Bilbros’ Game Trail Vineyard is named for both fungi- and deer-hunters who wore trails into these hills in the Yorkville Highlands in Mendocino County. It’s just under 10 acres, planted at 1,400 feet in elevation, giving the wine a juicy, crisp edge, and intense concentration that comes from Cabernet Clone 6—a relative rarity cherished by Napa’s elite winegrowers. 

Shrouded in mystery, discovered in an abandoned vineyard in Gold Country in 1963, Clone 6 is treasured today as a California heritage clone of Cabernet Sauvignon. Beaulieu Vineyards identified it as a superior clone in 1980, but today it’s not widely planted because it sets small clusters of tiny blueberry-size berries: a hallmark of quality, not quantity. BV bottles a Clone 6 Cab ($190), as do luminaries like Schrader ($495) and Paul Hobbs ($365).

This is a Cabernet Sauvignon for wine lovers who can’t get enough of Cabernet’s blackberry and blackcurrant flavors, delivered in an elegant, finessed package. It is a true testament to the quality of Clone 6.