Napa Valley 'Phoenix Vineyard' Cabernet Sauvignon

Most of us can thank the famed wine writer and critic Jon Bonné for introducing us to the wonder that is Steve Matthiasson. While working as wine critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and being frustrated by a California wine scene he described as "self-satisfied and underwhelming," he began to search out winemakers who bucked the trends of alcohol-heavy, over extracted wines so common in the industry, leading to the publication of his now seminal "The New California Wine" in 2013, and there, eleven words into chapter one, is the name Steve Matthiasson. 

Matthiasson became quite literally the poster child for a different kind of Napa Valley—home-grown and independent minded, masters of land and cellar, ambitious but unpretentious—a turning of the page in the crown jewel of American wine.

The pinnacle of Matthiasson's wines, the Cabernet Sauvignon for this bottle comes from the Phoenix Vineyard, which is located on steep slopes in Napa Valley and is farmed organically, mostly by hand. After fermentation, the wine is matured for 20 months in in a mixture of new and spent oak of various sizes before being blended back together and bottled.

Bright and perfumed, with blackberries, cassis, plums, sage and thyme, as welled as fresh tilled earth. This wine is evocative of the Napa Cabernets of the 1970's, which put the region on the world stage. 

12.5% ABV

Only 444 cases produced.