This honestly labeled Californian Native Red Wine is a collector’s item, and one of the hardest wines to find in the US. It never helps that Robert Parker regularly scores this cuvee 98+, and it’s also one of the rare wines that seems to receive dual acclamation from both Parker and many anti-Parker voices.
At its heart, this is a field-blend red based on Petit Syrah, Syrah and Zinfandel from a co-planted vineyard of many varieties in the Napa Valley. It is an incredible, monolithic wine that forces you to reconsider what you understand to be the boundaries of taste and flavour. This is not to say there’s anything overly extracted, oaky or clumsy, almost the complete opposite. This is a study in ever changing power, opening up to reveal layer after layer of black fruits, sweet spice, bay leaf and mint, pepper, and a baker’s shop of sweet/savory complexity. It is undeniably a big wine, carrying alcohol, glycerol and fruit-sweetness through the palate, but it is completely balanced.