2022 Stay Home Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County 750 ml

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Napa winery behind today’s velvety, NDA-protected Cabernet wanted to see what they could do with grapes from the other side of the Mayacamas. To play around with some Sonoma County fruit—just for the hell of it—and they had an “in” with one of the most coveted sites there. Why not?

After all, they have a legendary winemaking team: world-renowned crafters of too many 100-point wines to count. The kind of consultants that money can’t buy—they’ll only work with you if they like what they see in terms of terroir, facilities, and, crucially, commitment.

Their Sonoma project started out great: Their starry winemaking team took the perfect grapes and turned them into magic—a bold wine that was packed with dark plum and chocolate-covered raspberry flavors, dense enough for steaks but elegant enough to dance across the palate. It was impressive stuff… maybe a bit closer to their $175 Napa bottles than anyone involved would like to admit.

So it turned out that making exceptional Cabernet from a great Sonoma site was a great idea… but selling those bottles for north of $150? That’s when they hit the big speed bump.

This winery is KNOWN for Napa—specifically for Rutherford and Oakville, where they own a few sites that most wineries would do unspeakable things for. How, exactly, were they gonna sell a wine with Sonoma on the label while retaining their extra-luxe branding?

That’s where we enter the story. When we realized the winemaking talent involved—we didn’t stop until we’d secured four barrels exclusively for our members.