2010 Stonestreet Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Rockfall 750 ml

Jackson Family’s Stonestreet Estate: Cabernet Perfection in the Mayacamas

Over the last seven years, we’ve cracked open more Napa Valley cellar doors than we ever could have imagined when we began this adventure in 2006. Ramey, Phelps, Chappellet, and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars have all graced WineAccess’s pages. Many more are now waiting in the wings.

But when it comes to the biggest fish in the pond, the corporate giants who are partnered with big wholesalers in 50 states, WineAccess has long been viewed as an unnecessary risk. By speaking to so many directly every morning, by treating the largest membership to direct access to many of the highest-rated wines in America, we’re kind of like Amazon before everyone realized there was a different way to buy great books.

This is a first. Since 2010, we’ve been working our way up the ladder at Jackson Family Wines, not in pursuit of the million-case production of Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, but of three phenomenal estates that make some the finest and highest-rated Cabernet Sauvignons on the coast. Lokoya, Vérité, and Stonestreet have been on our radar for nearly 5 years. Finally, today, the powers that be have decided to test the waters of WineAccess.

We only met and conversed with Jess Stonestreet Jackson once. It was back in 1984, in New Jersey of all places. Jackson had just released the first vintage of Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay Reserve, the 1982. A great lover of horses, and particularly thoroughbreds, Jess was off to the races.

Resolute and terrifically focused, Jackson filled the room with intensity. His discussion of the importance of developing premium vineyard sites, often on dramatic, high-elevation mountain settings, was riveting. Over the years, Jackson built an empire that included three extraordinary high-elevation properties, each farmed to perfection, taking full advantage of the nearly unlimited resources of the parent company. Of those three, Stonestreet may well be the most extraordinary viticultural achievement of all.

Ranging in elevation from 400 to 2,400 feet, Stonestreet Estate Vineyards stands as one of the largest and most extensive mountain vineyards in the world. Towering high above the Alexander Valley in the Mayacamas Mountain Range, Stonestreet Estate defies all previous conceptions of winegrowing. Single-vineyard blocks are aligned in every imaginable spot on the compass, with peaks, valleys, and ridges creating a broad spectrum of varied facings and elevations. The estate’s broad spectrum of vine spacing, elevation, and mesoclimate require a vine-by-vine approach to winegrowing, making for some of the most richly concentrated and age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignons on the coast.

The 2010 Rockfall Cabernet Sauvignon was drawn from the choice blocks on estate: 430C, 350, and 82C. Rockfall Vineyard is Stonestreet’s highest at 2,000 feet in elevation, rich with volcanic soils on the western ridge of the Mayacamas Range. Cooling maritime breezes off the Pacific provide relief from the blistering summer sun, extending the growing season, pushing the envelope on maturity without sacrificing natural acidity. 2010 was a sensational vintage at Stonestreet, especially for Rockfall.

Brilliant ruby/purple in color. Deep, dark, brooding aromas of mountain blueberry, cassis, violets, and licorice. Luscious on the attack, still perfectly primary, showing no sign whatsoever of its three years in bottle, the core is packed with black- and red-fruit preserves, sweet spice, lavender, more licorice. Sappy and almost chewy in texture, this is Rockfall at its best — powerfully concentrated yet equally structured, finishing with firm tannins and bracing acidity. 14.5% alcohol, yet there’s no sign of heat. 3.67 pH — more like Pauillac than the Silverado Trail.

95 points. $110 on release. Something else altogether as, five years after we first came calling, the Jackson family pries open its cellar doors to the WineAccess membership. Shipping included on 4.