The Napa Valley winemaking scene remains dynamic and forward-looking, with new projects emerging each year while established estates make notable shifts in their operations. Here are some of the most exciting investments, advances and revivals in the world of Napa Cabernet.
Almacerro
Few new family-owned Napa Cabernet brands have as much history as Almacerro and its Howell Mountain estate vineyard, some of it planted in the late 1800s. Following Prohibition, the estate was inherited by the Hess family, and in the 1970s Bill and Joan Smith purchased and developed four parcels for their La Jota wines.
When the Smiths moved on to a namesake Pinot Noir project, the La Jota brand (and three of the parcels) passed to new owners, first to Markham and then to Jackson Family Wines, where the label’s distinctive mountain Cabernets live on.
The final piece is a 40-acre parcel that had been the Smith homestead, known as Piedra Hill, which included six acres of Cabernet Sauvignon. These were purchased by trial attorney Frank Scherkenbach in 2016.
“The remoteness of the estate was intriguing to him,” says Almacerro general manager Lindsay Dale, who adds that Scherkenbach is a passionate wine lover who was “always looking for his own dirt off the beaten path.”
Scherkenbach assembled an all-star team, with Mike Wolf as vineyard manager, Matilda Scott as winemaker and Françoise Peschon as consulting winemaker. They expanded the vineyard to 11 acres in total, with Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Petit Verdot and Tempranillo in addition to the core plots of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Dale emphasizes that the team thinks of themselves first and foremost as stewards of the land. “We aren’t going to be this monster company,” she says. “We’re only going to be as big as our 11 acres can produce.” The aim is to make nuanced, balanced and elegant wines. “Typically, when I think of Howell Mountain, I think of big, tannic monsters. We are making wines of Old World finesse and elegance.”
While the goal is to use only estate grapes, there have been some challenges, including fires in 2020 (when no wine was bottled) and frost in 2021 and 2022, which lead to purchasing some grapes from nearby vineyards. Even though 2017 was Almacerro’s first vintage, that year’s wines won’t be released until some additional bottle time, making the 2018, 2019 and 2021 bottlings the first releases.
Recent Releases
ALMACERRO Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 2021 (94, $225)
ALMACERRO Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 2018 (94, $225)
ALMACERRO Howell Mountain 2018 (93, $225)
ALMACERRO Howell Mountain 2021 (92, $225)
ALMACERRO Howell Mountain 2019 (91, $225)
Annulus Cellars
Annulus is the ultimate limited-production, family-run Napa label. Founders Luke Evnin and Deann Wright first met as students at the University of California, San Francisco, in the 1980s, then got married in Napa in 1990 and purchased a home in Rutherford in 2000.
“We always had a special place in our heart for Napa,” Evnin says. “I originally trained as a scientist and spent my professional career investing in startup biotech companies.” Wright, who was an attorney for biotech startups, likewise has a background in science. But the couple were always enamored with their Napa neighbors and dreamed of launching a wine brand for their family to work on together.
They looked for a vineyard to purchase, but most of what they found on the market required replanting, which meant years of delay before their first wines could be released. Instead, they turned their focus to finding the right winemaker, who had access to the sort of grapes they would be excited to make wine from. That led them to Nigel Kinsman—winemaker for his own Kinsman Eades, along with Accendo and Bella Oaks, among others—who has quickly risen among the ranks of Napa’s most sought-after winemakers.
The couple were new to the wine industry, but they weren’t coming into this project blind. “We had been in Napa Valley for 20 years,” Evnin says. “We collected Napa Valley Cabernet for most of that time, and we got to know a decent number of the vintners and sat at their tables and heard their stories and what they were trying to do.”
The couple’s background in startups was handy as well—they knew how to get talented people to work together to execute a vision, and they weren’t afraid to jump into a new business. There are currently two vineyard-designated wines from grower Andy Beckstoffer’s Las Piedras and Bruce and Heather Phillips’ Vine Hill Ranch. A Napa Valley blend from those two sites and an additional vineyard on Diamond Mountain round out the portfolio. While the couple still hopes to find an estate vineyard that works for their project, they are gathering valuable experience by making wine with purchased grapes, which is sharpening their focus in terms of what they hope to accomplish with their own piece of land.
According to Wright, Annulus is derived from the Latin word for “ring”: “The symbolism of the ring, the cycles of seasons and links to winemaking—particularly the circle of gathering people—is what really resonated with all of us.” Daughters Alexandra and Elena are included in the family business.
Recent Releases
ANNULUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Vine Hill Ranch 2021 (96, $250)
ANNULUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard 2021 (94, $250)
ANNULUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021 (92, $175)
Burgess Cellars
With its new ownership, new winemaker and new vineyard investments, Burgess Cellars has been in the spotlight of late, yet the estate itself dates back to 1880. Sitting on the west side of Howell Mountain just below the boundary of the AVA, the main site was bought in 2020 by Gaylon Lawrence Jr., who has a knack for purchasing historic brands in Napa, including Heitz Cellars and Stony Hill.
Winemaker Meghan Zobeck also came aboard in 2020, only to have the Glass Fire devastate the cellar and render the year’s grapes unusable, meaning that the release of the 2021s is the first chance to see the results of her work. She actually turned to winemaking after a career as an NFL contract negotiator, doing stints with Philippe Melka and Screaming Eagle before joining Burgess.
Because of the fire damage, the winemaking is now being done in the former Luna facility on Silverado Trail, which has been renovated under Zobeck’s lead. Also under her direction, the vineyard is undergoing a shift to regenerative farming. Her approach to winemaking is low-intervention, she explains, “with the idea to preserve the fruit and let the site express itself.” Her debut wines show the quality and style of the ’21 vintage, showing purity and floral notes amid energetic fruit.
Recent Releases
BURGESS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Promiscua 2021 (93, $145)
BURGESS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Quartz Creek 2021 (92, $175)
Cathiard Family Estate
It’s no stretch to say that France’s Cathiard family has built a significant wine legacy. The portfolio comprises numerous châteaus in Bordeaux—including Smith-Haut-Lafitte, Le Thil, Cantelys, Beauregard, St.-Robert and Bastor-Lamontagne—as well as the region’s famed Les Sources de Caudalie, among other luxury hotels across Europe.
For their first wine venture in California, the family purchased the 58-acre former Flora Springs estate in 2019. “We knew it would be very good terroir—such a diversity of soils,” says general manager Justine Labbé of the site, which is located at the base of the Mayacamas mountains. But the timing was off, with the inaugural vintage, 2020, facing the dual challenges of wildfires and the pandemic. Nevertheless, Cathiard’s Cabernets are among the few successful wines from that vintage.
Labbé has been converting the vineyard to organic practices, such as using new cover crops and switching the row orientation on new plantings for better airflow and even ripening. Blocks of Merlot and Malbec have been removed and separated into five new blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, and there are also plans to add a Sauvignon Blanc to the lineup. A parcel of old vines has been kept, with their fruit going into the estate’s top cuvée.
When asked if the vineyards adapted to the new practices easily, Labbé responds with a laugh: “When you come from Bordeaux, everything is easy!” She adds that the challenges of disease pressure and mildew are not a concern in the Napa sun.
Labbé describes her wines at Cathiard as Napa fruit but with Bordeaux roots. “They are wines of structure and density,” she says. “The most important thing is to have balance.”
Recent Releases
CATHIARD FAMILY ESTATE Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021 (94, $395)
CATHIARD FAMILY ESTATE Founding Brothers Napa Valley 2021 (93, $225)
Constellation Brands
Constellation’s commitment to its Cabernet brands is evident in the quality of the wines as well as the recent investments the company has made to its Napa portfolio, which includes Mount Veeder Winery, Robert Mondavi Winery, Schrader Cellars and To Kalon Vineyard Company.
“This is about building wineries for the long term, making wines of quality that last for the long haul,” explains Jason Smith, general manager of Constellation’s Icon Wine division.
Smith points to the 450 acres of the iconic To Kalon vineyard under the company’s control, which are now certified organic. In 2023, the To Kalon Vineyard Company transitioned from winemaker Andy Erickson to Tony Biagi. “I think the most exciting part for Biagi is access to the heritage clone that we have,” says Smith, referring to the selection of Cabernet Sauvignon grown in To Kalon. “One of our commitments to quality is planting more of the heritage clone.”
Whereas typical Cabernet vines produce large clusters, the heritage clone in To Kalon yields clusters that are so small and compact they fit in the palm of a hand, while providing greater concentration and structure. The new plantings will also be available to the other Constellation brands, such as Schrader, that source To Kalon grapes.
There are also changes afoot at Schrader, which is considering an expansion of its lineup. A vineyard plot in St. Helena will be harvested this year to see how it fits into the program, while the Double Diamond bottling (Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year in 2022) has been slowly increasing production, though with plans to keep the price under $100. In addition to To Kalon fruit, whose percentage varies from year to year, Schrader sources grapes for the Double Diamond from an estate on the south side of Oakville crossroads that has undergone some replanting in the past five years. A second Double Diamond bottling, a Cabernet-based blend, is also being introduced with the 2021 vintage.
Meanwhile, Robert Mondavi Winery has been closed to visitors while the facility undergoes renovations, including a makeover and expansion of the cellar, which should be ready in time for the 2024 harvest. “The winery is being completely redesigned,” Smith says. That includes moving away from upright oak fermenters to stainless steel and concrete versions, while automated pump-overs will replace manual ones. As of 2023, Kurtis Ogasawara has taken over as head winemaker.
Lastly, there’s a new winemaker at Mount Veeder Winery, John Giannini, who worked with Schrader winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown at Outpost. This remains one of the most overlooked brands in the valley, delivering outstanding wines with Mt. Veeder’s distinctive wild bay leaf and chaparral profile.
Recent Releases
ROBERT MONDAVI Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville To Kalon Vineyard The Reserve 2021 (95, $250)
ROBERT MONDAVI Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville The Estates 2021 (93, $100)
ROBERT MONDAVI Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District 2021 (93, $95)
ROBERT MONDAVI Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021 (91, $55)
MOUNT VEEDER WINERY Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder Reserve 2021 (94, $150)
MOUNT VEEDER WINERY Reserve Mount Veeder 2019 (93, $125)
MOUNT VEEDER WINERY Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021 (91, $55)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley RBS Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard 2021 (98, $525)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Heritage Clone To Kalon Vineyard 2021 (98, $525)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley CCS Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard 2021 (97, $525)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley LPV Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard 2021 (97, $525)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Monastery Block To Kalon Vineyard 2021 (97, $525)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District WH Wappo Hill Vineyard 2021 (97, $525)
SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Double Diamond 2021 (94, $90)
SCHRADER CELLARS Double Diamond Napa Valley 2021 (92, $90)
TO KALON VINEYARD COMPANY Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville H.W.C 2021 (96, $250)
TO KALON VINEYARD COMPANY Elizas’s Oakville 2021 (96, $225)
TO KALON VINEYARD COMPANY Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Highest Beauty 2021 (95, $250)
Diamond Creek Vineyards
When Champagne house Maison Louis Roederer, under the direction of seventh-generation Frédéric Rouzaud, purchased the historic Diamond Creek in 2020, many didn’t know there was a longtime friendship behind the transaction. Frédéric’s father, Jean-Claude Rouzaud, the retired head of Roederer, had been friends with Diamond Creek’s founders, the late Al and Boots Brounstein, since the 1990s.
“Taking on the ownership of Diamond Creek felt like a natural passing of the baton to the Rouzaud family,” says Roederer Collection USA president Nicole Carter. “Since the acquisition, a long-term plan to restore and replant areas of the estate has been implemented. Diamond Creek is a piece of hallowed Napa ground and we believe the wines are like no other in our region.”
Gravelly Meadow, a 5-acre vineyard originally planted in 1968 on pebbly brown soil, is the most impacted site, with various blocks undergoing rejuvenation and replanting. As a result, hardly any 2021 Gravelly Meadow was bottled. The 2022 vintage is set to release next year as the wine’s 50th anniversary bottling.
Meanwhile, the Three Vineyard Blend, which has been made only occasionally, will now have a regular spot in the lineup, as it will include the fruit from the young vine parcels. “The Three Vineyard Blend is crafted to reflect a blend of the estate but also to be more approachable on release,” Carter explains. “As such, it’s priced below the single vineyards.”
She adds that this bottling’s new approach gives winemaker Graham Wehmeier creative freedom to make even stricter selections for the single-vineyard bottlings. “With this direction, if there is excellent wine that does not fit in the final blend for each single-vineyard bottling, that wine will also go to the Three Vineyard Blend.”
The vineyard was recently certified organic under the leadership of Wehmeier, and the commitment between the two families continues to be a big motivation. “It is our goal to produce wines of singularity and distinction that keep Al’s spirit alive in every bottle we release,” Carter says.
Recent Releases
DIAMOND CREEK Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Volcanic Hill 2021 (96, $500)
DIAMOND CREEK Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Red Rock Terrace 2021 (95, $500)
DIAMOND CREEK Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Three Vineyard Blend 2021 (94, $375)
Larkmead Vineyards
Originally founded in 1895, this historic, family-owned estate has been undergoing an exciting evolution, first under the leadership of Dan Petroski, who worked from 2012 to 2021 to invigorate the health of the estate vineyards, and now with winemaker Avery Heelan at the helm—and with a clear objective for the future.
“The goal is always to represent Larkmead to what I think the best of its ability is with this site,” Heelan says. “I’m trying to focus on mouthfeel—the perfume, fruits and freshness. I don’t want overt or huge wines.”
Heelan is among a new generation of Napa winemakers who take a different approach to winemaking and farming. “I think being at the early stages of our career, we see that some changes need to be made if we want to keep making Napa Cabernet for the rest of our career.” She has her sights set on farming for longevity to attain older vines, which she believes are more consistent despite weather extremes.
Heelan’s winemaking is slowly evolving the style of the wines, emphasizing the characteristics she associates with Calistoga—dark fruit flavors along with perfumed notes of rose petal and violet. She’s picking the red wine grapes later (and the white wine grapes earlier) and taking a different approach to fermentation, using cooler ferments and longer pump-overs. “So what we’re extracting are not bitter seed tannins,” she says. “I want to build color. I want to build mouthfeel by hanging the fruit a bit longer on the vine, but also in the fermenter as well, and fermenting slightly warmer.”
Heelan has also cut the lineup in half, eliminating a trio of estate block–specific bottlings in favor of blends that she thinks best represent Larkmead. “I just felt like we were asking a lot financially and mentally of our customers. For me, wine should be easy to enjoy.”
Recent Releases
LARKMEAD Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Solari 2021 (94, $200)
LARKMEAD Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021 (93, $125)
Nickel & Nickel Winery
This single-vineyard, single-varietal winery has found its perfect match in winemaker Joe Harden, who has been at Nickel & Nickel since 2018.
For Harden, not blending sites or varieties adds an intensity to his wine-making decisions—and he sees the proof in the winery’s excellent new lineup. “There’s a level of detail that I find pretty inspiring,” he says. Yet even as Harden focuses the program at Nickel & Nickel, the overall number of bottlings has actually increased under his leadership.
“I love the vineyards,” he says. “That’s really where my passion lies.” Harden is also concerned about what he calls “future-proofing” the vineyards. “There are a lot of steps that we could take to establish these vineyards to triple the amount of time they last. A lot of vineyards in Napa get pulled after 10, 15, 20 years, which I think is a shame.” He believes in organic farming and risk management, as well as heat-mitigation practices such as misters in the vineyards to lower the fruit temperature during heat spikes.
Row orientation is a big focus for Harden, who is shifting east-west orientations to a more northeast-southwest setup. “Being 30 to 40 degrees off means that when the sun is at its hottest time at the very top of the canopy, the canopy is providing shade.”
Harden has also changed the way he approaches the wines in the cellar. When he arrived, he thought the goal should be to treat all the wines the same to let the vineyard expressions shine through.
“I’ve taken a different approach,” he explains. “I think on paper, and in terms of tasting, a vineyard in Howell Mountain should have totally different analysis than a vineyard in, say, Oak Knoll. And so we treat every vineyard—and even within a vineyard, every block—a little differently to highlight what in the vineyard is trying to shine.”
Recent Releases
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford C.C. Ranch 2021 (94, $135)
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Atlas Peak Fog Break Vineyard 2021 (93, $135)
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Element 28 2021 (93, $225)
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville John C. Sullenger Vineyard 2021 (93, $135)
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Martin Stelling Vineyard 2021 (93, $275)
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Yountville Lattice Run Vineyard 2021 (92, $150)
NICKEL & NICKEL Cabernet Sauvignon Yountville State Ranch 2021 (92, $135)
Stony Hill Vineyard
After some recent stops and starts, this longstanding fixture of the Napa scene has been going through a rebirth. The history dates to 1943, when Fred and Eleanor McCrea bought a property on Spring Mountain and built a house to use as a weekend retreat. Being wine lovers, the McCreas put some vines into the ground as a hobby in 1948, using cuttings from Inglenook. In 1952, they bottled their first wine, a Chardonnay, under the Stony Hill label, and in the ensuing decades they continued to focus on white varieties, with some of the original Riesling (1948) and Gewürztraminer (1959) plantings still in production today. Mike Chelini had an enviously long run as winemaker from 1972 through 2018.
Then things became a bit more erratic. The 168-acre estate was purchased by Long Meadow Ranch in 2018 but quickly resold to Gaylon Lawrence Jr. in 2020. Winemaker Jaimee Motley was initially tapped to resurrect the vineyards, though she left in 2022. Reid Griggs now oversees production.
Stony Hill’s red wine history begins in the 2000s, with the first Cabernet vines planted in 2004 and the initial bottling released in 2009. The estate is now leaning into Cabernet, with more recent plantings that bring the total to 26 acres, more than half of which are now in production.
With its high elevation on Spring Mountain (ranging from 600 to 1,400 feet), the estate Cabernet tilts to a red fruit profile with a taut, chalky minerality as opposed to more flattering versions from the valley floor. With the vineyard in flux, production currently sources some additional sites, including the Ink Grade and Linda Falls vineyards on Howell Mountain. These bottlings carry the SHV designation, started by the McCrea family and revived for the two current vintages being made from outside fruit.
Recent Releases
STONY HILL Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain District 2021 (92, $250)
STONY HILL Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain SHV 2021 (94, $250)
STONY HILL Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley SHV 2021 (92, $250)
