2014 Aequitas Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

This time of year in Napa Valley, the new vintage is in barrel, cellars are crowded, and winemakers are looking to make room—at the exact same time their accountants are looking to score a revenue bump by getting some bottles off the books before the ball drops. 

That perfect storm (plus a clutch winery contact) landed us the 2014 Æquitas Cabernet Sauvignon Atlas Peak, the kind of year-end bargain we love to bring to Wine Access members. A tiny-production, mailing-list only Cabernet made by maverick winemaker Jason Moore, the Æquitas blew us away when we tasted it at the winery, after we made it known that we’d noticed the untouched cases in the corner.

This is the essence of Cabernet from the untamed Atlas Peak AVA. Bold and masculine with a deep, dark core of black cherry, blackberry, and dark chocolate, it’s got notes of espresso and cedar accenting the wild fruit, all packaged on the kind of stout frame that has collectors clamoring for Napa Valley mountain wines.

Most of Æquitas’ tiny 2014 production went to the mailing list. The rest has been aging untouched in their cellars for three years, and we locked it in for our members at a spectacular price: just $60 per bottle. Steals like this are rare on Atlas Peak, the high-altitude land of high-priced Cabernets like the $200+ Au Sommet, so we’re claiming some for ourselves. 

Atlas Peak is high risk, high reward. There are few places in Napa where it is harder or more expensive to plant vines than the rugged slopes of the wild AVA. And while it has scared off countless gentleman farmers, its high-altitude volcanic soils are equally famous for bewitching uber-talented rogues like 100-point winemaker and Screaming Eagle alum Heidi Barrett and “The Judge” legend John Kongsgaard. 

If any winemaker would stand intrigued and undaunted by this special terroir, it’s Jason Moore. He’s the epitome of the Napa Valley outsider, a guy who moved from Texas to bust down the door of the Napa Valley wine industry without formal training. Five years after launching his professional career with his lauded Modus Operandi brand, Jason’s wines were being served at a White House state dinner.

Those wines—not to mention the character, work ethic, and moxie his story displays—convinced Æquitas vintner Amy Ash (who we know from her time at Anderson Conn Valley) that Jason was the man to lead Æquitas. She couldn’t have been more right, and he couldn’t have inherited better raw materials: The grapes for the 2014 Æquitas come from an absolutely priceless Atlas Peak vineyard that offers views of San Francisco on a clear day. Sitting on a tiny layer of topsoil, the vines have to burrow into the bedrock, yielding exquisite quality and concentration. The rest of the grapes came from a site that supplies Anderson Conn Valley’s Eloge red. 

The 2014 production of Æquitas was so small that they didn’t even submit it for scores, and most of the bottles are tucked away in the cellars of their mailing list collectors. Whether you’re a Cabernet lover with a penchant for stout mountain wines, or just someone who wants to stock their cellar with phenomenal Cabernet at a great price, your antennae should be up on this small allocation.