2013 Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) Signet Collection Reserve Clone 6 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 750 ml

The Once-Lost Clone Responsible for Legendary Napa Wines

In 1938, the owner of Beaulieu Vineyard, Georges de Latour, made a trip to France to find a new winemaker who could perform a daunting task: Revive the California wine industry after Prohibition.

The man he brought back made that task look modest.

His name was Andre Tchelischeff, and the diminutive, chain-smoking, sharp-witted Russian-born winemaker seized the opportunity given to him by de Latour, and then some: He scrapped every practice at BV that wasn’t geared toward quality, and in turn, raised the bar for all California wine, serving as a mentor to everyone from Robert Mondavi to Rob Davis of Jordan Winery.

Georges de Latour died just two years after bringing Tchelischeff to Napa, and shortly thereafter, Tchelischeff decided that BV’s best-quality 1936 Cabernet vintage should be released, not after being blended with low-quality wine (as had been BV’s custom), but unblended, to display its quality. That wine became what is now one of the most iconic wines in California: BV’s Georges de Latour Private Reserve.

The backbone of the de Latour Reserve is Clone 6: This Cabernet clone is renowned for producing concentrated, full-bodied wines from its small, loose clusters and tiny berries. First planted by a UC Davis professor in the 1880s in Jackson, California, the vineyard where the clone took root was abandoned and forgotten until the 1960s. Using an old library map, Dr. Austin Goheen tracked down the mystery plot while hunting for virus-free vines and managed to get a cutting. Rescued from obscurity, the clone has become an irreplaceable component of blue-chip Napa wines, and it achieved one of its most sublime standalone expressions ever in 2013.

The 2013 Beaulieu Vineyard Signet Collection Reserve Clone 6 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford puts that inimitable clone on display. In a gushing 95-point review, Vinous’s Antonio Galloni called it “fabulous,” “explosive and gloriously ripe,” and a “real head-turner.” This is a deep and intense exemplar of Rutherford terroir: one with an incomparable history that belongs in the cellar of any lover of blue-chip Napa Cabernet.

Beaulieu Vineyard is synonymous with the golden standard of Napa Valley wines, and its limited-edition reserve bottles are pursued as hotly as Mondavi To Kalon Cabernets—and we would go so far to say that you can’t really understand the iconic Georges de Latour Private Reserve without having tasted the Clone 6. The grape is not just responsible for so much of the wine’s power and deep concentration, but displays “Rutherford Dust”—an insider term coined by Andre Tchelischeff to describe the area’s terroir—like no other. In Napa’s magnificent 2013 vintage, winemaker Jeffrey Stambor produced a particularly polished masterpiece with the Clone 6 Reserve, a dazzling, powerful taste of Napa history and pedigree, blending rich, ripe black fruit with vanilla, loam, and cedar. It’s a bottle that tells the story of Napa Valley as well as any other.

Beaulieu Vineyard, a source of some of the region’s most beautiful Cabernets, was founded in 1900 with just four acres by Bordeaux émigré Georges de Latour, whose belief that California had the potential to create wines every bit as beautiful as the First Growths sent him on the quest for Tchelistcheff.

The line from Tchelistcheff to the 2013 Beaulieu Vineyard Signet Collection Reserve Clone 6 is short and straight, as he mentored Beaulieu winemaker Jeffrey Stambor, the man who crafted the regal 2013 vintage, after one of the great Napa harvests in memory.

There’s no doubt about it: This is not only bottled history, but a pleasure-delivering 95-point classic of the first order. For Napa collectors of all stripes—and those who just want a stunningly great wine at a fantastic price—this is one you want to pull the trigger on now.