2021 Westerly Wines Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Napa Valley 750 ml

In the fall of 2021—the waning days of a vintage that Wine Spectator recently crowned with 97-point “Classic” status—Etienne Terlinden hopped in his car and sped about 350 miles north to Napa Valley. 

The promise? Cabernet from the finest terroir in the New World—and maybe the world, period. 

Terlinden, an accomplished winemaker who typically toils in Santa Barbara’s Cabernet hotbed of Happy Canyon, had received a text from a winegrower friend who works at the nexus of the Cabernet universe. At their Oakville property—located on the same one-mile strip as Opus, Cakebread, Nickel & Nickel, and Mondavi—the season was looking beautiful, and they might have a surplus of fruit. Did Terlinden want to come up and check it out?

By the time his iPhone went back on lockscreen, Terlinden was cruising up Highway 101. By dusk, he was sampling fruit in Oakville. He left with a handshake deal on a few tons. 

Three years later, Terlinden found himself in Oakville once again, pouring the Cabernet for us. We sat with him at Oakville Grocery, just across from the world-famous To Kalon vineyard, and as we swirled and sipped, he recounted the stroke of luck that made it possible.

This 2021 Oakville Cab is drinking beautifully, with all the character we expect from prime Oakville terroir. With a ripe nose of blackcurrant, blackberry, and plum layered with aromas of violets, dark chocolate, and bay, it’s bold and structured on the palate, with a rich core of black fruit framed by firm, well-integrated tannins that carry a long and powerful finish.