2012 Watkins Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Bugay Vineyard Sonoma County 750 ml

We were buying from and supporting this small, family-owned Sonoma operation back when they were making just two barrels of each wine and fermenting lots in makeshift containers because stainless steel tanks were too expensive. Today, their mailing list regularly buys up the winery’s entire production, because their Cabernets are held close to the hearts of countless mountain Cab collectors. But when we came seeking as many 2012s as they’d give us, our early patronage paid off with a killer deal they won’t offer to anyone else.
 
The 2012 Watkins Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon from the coveted Bugay Vineyard is an extremely rare library release from the famous Sonoma harvest that Decanter called “the quintessential modern California vintage,” yielding a generation of age-worthy, ripe classics.
 
It’s a stunning deal on a polished Sonoma throwback: Showing terrific complexity and elegance after several years in the cellar, layers of dried roses, fresh-turned soil, and soft red berry enfold a rich juicy core and a long, claret-like finish.
 
Library wines are some of the most valuable bottles on the market—pre-aged, perfectly preserved specimens from wineries’ private stocks. From top vintages, like 2012 in California, library releases can effectively become priceless. Such wines don’t pop up often, so when winemaker Randall Watkins let it slip that they were considering opening up a limited number of their 2012 Cabernets for sale, we pulled out all the stops.
 
Watkins consults for top wineries like Laurel Glen, but his heart is in the family business, which started in 1979. He specializes in mountain wines, specifically those off the hardscrabble, rock-strewn slopes of the Mayacamas. He focuses on sites with the warmth and sun exposure to ripen late into the growing season, and rocky volcanic soils that are well-draining, stressing the vines and leading to small, thick-skinned, ultra-concentrated berries.
 
The small-production release off the Bugay Vineyard shows the genius of his approach, and why his wines are vanishingly popular with those who prefer high-altitude expressions. The site, which sits some 1,400 feet up on a Mayacamas ridge, has produced stunning Cabernets for Arnot-Roberts. Watkins sources from the rockiest block of Bugay, which sits above frosts and fog, protected from damaging conditions and perfectly situated to absorb sunlight. Caressed and cooled by marine air, grapes mature slowly and evenly, maintaining the acidity bolstered by the complex volcanic rock soils interspersed with ash.
 
Precious little fruit comes off this block in general, making today’s wine doubly rare. Throw in our value price on this single-vineyard library Cabernet, and you’re looking at a deal that will come and go like a ghost.