2009 Arietta Cabernet Sauvignon Coombsville Napa Valley 750 ml

“We drank the ‘09 Cabernet last night…”

Head of Wine Vanessa Conlin was at home, catching up on the phone with her friend and former colleague Fritz Hatton from Arietta, when he made passing mention of the 2009 Cabernet—and from that moment, she couldn’t get it out of her head. She's become intimately familiar with how beautifully Arietta Cabernets age, and by the end of the conversation, her mind had conjured the wine’s developing bouquet, its velour texture. 

After their call, she went straight to her cellar to dig through her Arietta stash, and after moving a few dozen bottles around... there it was: One cool, crisp-labeled bottle of the ‘09 Cabernet was waiting, exactly where it had been since the day Vanessa moved into her Napa home.  

She cradled the bottle, gave it a gentle decant, and poured the ruby-garnet Cabernet into two Bordeaux stems. Powerful aromatics of black currant, blueberry compote, mocha, clove, and graphite spilled into the room, along with developing notes of leather, black truffle, licorice, and dried violets. After one a sip, Vanessa reveled in the dense and graceful wine bursting with flavors of blackberry, black cherry, and cassis. As the supple tannins released their grip, complex notes of leather, cedar, baking spices, anise, tilled earth, and perfumed floral hints lingered beautifully. 

For the next two hours, she and her husband were completely engrossed by the wine—no phones, no TV, just us and a beautiful bottle of wine. Perfectly aged, very long and complex and just entering its prime, it’s a one-bottle argument for vintage wine as an unparalleled sensory experience.

As soon as the bottle was empty, Vanessa called Fritz back and told him she needed to offer this wine to our members. 

Arietta wines are more than just the Napa Valley wines that we at Wine Access pour for our most avid Bordeaux and California Cabernet collector friends. They’re the ones we open for pure, unadulterated pleasure—and that’s exactly what Arietta’s 2009 Coombsville Cabernet Sauvignon is delivering right now. 

Crafted by Screaming Eagle winemaker Andy Erickson and aged in Arietta’s temperature-controlled Napa library, the 2009 is swirling with intoxicating black fruits and a developing bouquet of leather, black truffle, licorice, and dried violets. With a velvety mouthfeel earned over the past decade, this Cabernet is just coming into its own. So whether you’re looking to add to a collection of vintage wine or just want to experience the singular sensory pleasures of perfectly cellared Napa Cabernet, this one strikes the perfect note. 

Arietta’s Cabernet comes from the Napa Valley AVA of Coombsville. The area east of the town of Napa is just now gaining the renown it deserves, so it’s safe to say that Arietta proprietors Fritz and Caren Hatton and their winemaker Andy Erickson were way ahead of the curve in sourcing Cabernet there more than a decade ago. 

The core of the wine comes from a tiny 1.7-acre plot in the Meteor Vineyard, which sits in the heart of the appellation and is one of the greatest grapegrowing sites in Coombsville. The site, which was planted by viticulturist Mike Wolf two decades ago, sits in the caldera of an ancient volcano, so its soils are composed of volcanic ash that gives the wine a beautiful and intense minerality. 

The southwestern exposure gives the grapes a little extra dose of afternoon sun, which balances out the relative cool of this site at the southern end of the Valley. It’s a combination of growing conditions that affords the grapes a long hang time—they’re often not harvested until mid-October—so they develop their depth of flavor slowly and gracefully, without becoming over-ripe. 

The result, after 20 months in more than 75% new French oak, is one of the most elegant and age-worthy Cabernets in Napa Valley. When it comes to the 2009, the hard work of waiting has been done for you, so claim a bottle of it for yourself, let it rest a few days after it arrives, and indulge. Take it from us, it’s an experience like no other.