2012 Juslyn Vineyards Perry's Blend Spring Mountain District 750 ml

Ignoring Inflation on Spring Mountain Road

In the early 1990s, Craig MacLean landed a head winemaking job at Spring Mountain Winery. But each day as he made his way up Spring Mountain Road, he couldn't help but eyeball an impossible 30-degree slope overlooking his employer's property. If anyone ever had the guts to plant that hillside, MacLean thought, it had the makings of one of the greatest Cabernet vineyards in the valley. “Even so,” Craig told us over dinner in Napa last week, “I never thought I’d see what I saw on that April morning."

British expatriates Perry and Carolyn Butler moved to California in 1982. After a dozen years of 80-hour workweeks, the Butlers cashed out — and began scouring Napa Valley looking for their next adventure. In 1997, after a half-dozen false starts, a realtor drove Perry up Highway 29, turning off on Spring Mountain Road. Hundreds of feet above the valley, they pulled into a dirt driveway that would lead to a steep 42-acre hillside estate. The Butlers’ search was over.

And so it was on that April morning of 1997 that Craig MacLean took the morning drive to which he had become so accustomed, and spotted the vineyard crew, armed with just picks and shovels, carving Cabernet plants into the rocky substrata of a 30-degree slope that MacLean never thought anyone would have the guts to plant.

“I knew I had to move quickly,” Craig told us as we swirled this luscious, black-fruit powerhouse at Angèle. “The valley’s a small place. It wouldn’t take long for every young winemaker to pitch his services to the Butlers. I was just lucky to get to Perry first.”

By 2002, the young hillside planting was beginning to turn out a tiny crop of extravagantly concentrated small-berry Cabernet Sauvignon, Franc, and Merlot. Then came the Wine Advocate reviews and, in a Robert Parker millisecond, Juslyn’s Spring Mountain stock was soaring. Since 2002, MacLean’s Juslyn Cabernets have garnered a staggering nineteen 92+ scores from Parker, a performance that places Juslyn in the rarefied mountain air of blue-chippers like Keenan, Lokoya, O'Shaughnessy, and CADE.

But as intriguing as the exquisite blackberry purity of these voluptuous Cabernets has been Perry Butler’s refusal to follow Napa’s inflationary ways. As other 2012 estate-grown, high-scoring properties continue to push prices through the roof, Juslyn’s “Perry’s Blend” remains Napa’s most distinguished blue-chip bargain.

The 2012 Juslyn “Perry’s Blend” is a tour de force. Saturated purple. Explosive aromas of blackberry, mountain blueberry, and black raspberry. Big, rich, and voluptuous on the attack, with the kind of silken texture that’s so common to all of the great 2012s, the core is packed with black-fruit bramble, doused with sweet crème de cassis, finishing with a fine dusting of Spring Mountain tannins. This is a masterful effort from winemaker Craig MacLean.

$80 on release. $55 this morning — ONLY on WineAccess. Shipping included on 4.