2014 Rudius Wines Cabernet Sauvignon Kaley Elizabeth Vineyard Oakville Napa Valley 750 ml

Follow-Up To Parker’s “Killer Effort” Cab

Winemaker Jeff Ames (the force behind Tor Kenward) became an overnight Wine Access favorite after his 2013 Rudius “Kaley Elizabeth” Napa Cabernet sold out in mere hours. Parker’s 96+ point score called it a “killer effort,” “multilayered, deep, powerful, concentrated,” and declared it would last “40+ years.” Ames’ voluptuous 2014 follow-up from Wine Spectator’s “dream vintage” boasts the same power and concentration and is irresistible in the glass. Culled from perfect black, compact clusters plucked off the eastern Oakville hills above Rudd, and directly below Dalla Valle, the 2014 “Kaley Elizabeth” offers proof of why some of Napa’s most precious Cabernets hail from these vibrant red soils. This is a collectible bottle from a star winemaker whose stock just keeps rising. 

It is the kind of opulent, broad-shouldered and age-worthy Cabernet that inspired Parker to declare rising-star vintner Jeff Ames “a name to reckon with.” Ames’s ascent is no surprise, considering that he honed his Cabernet toolkit making wines for Schrader, Tor Kenwood, Maybach, and Outpost under Thomas Rivers Brown, author of more than 25 100-point wines.

After getting his start under Lynn Penner-Ash in Oregon, Rudius winemaker Jeff Ames worked for Wine Spectator long enough to leave critic James Laube with the impression that, because of his “knowledge and passion for wine,” Jeff Ames “would go on to bigger and better things.”

But first, Ames made big sacrifices: The native Alabamian left the West Coast and reclaimed his old job at a Memphis wine shop in order to save up. When he moved back out to Napa Valley, he got a job assisting 25-time 100-point winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown. By the time Ames was 31, he had become Tor Kenwood’s full-time winemaker. Finally, in 2005, Ames made a daring commitment: He sold his house to raise funds for a new project.

That project is Rudius, and Ames and his brand are on a tear. His early wines gained critical attention, his scores crept up and up, and in 2012 and 2013, he broke through by placing five Cabernet Sauvignons in Robert Parker’s coveted 94- to 96+ point range, including the 96+ points for the 2013 wine named for his daughter, Kaley Elizabeth.

The Rudius lineup is based on the vines they wish to work with, not on a hierarchy headed by one flagship wine — but it’s hard to imagine a more worthy standard-bearer than the Rudius Kaley Elizabeth. It is made from iconic Cabernet Clone 7 vines, rooted in the eastern hills of Oakville just above the Silverado Trail, that have been snaking their way through brick-red clay soils since 1988. The BB-sized berries Ames harvested in 2013 resulted in the 96+-point wine that Parker called a “beauty” of “multilayered, deep, powerful, concentrated” complexity. Ames earned a similarly glowing assessment for the 2012, and there is every indication that the 2014 vintage — which continued what might be an unparalleled streak of stellar Napa growing seasons — will be another high-scoring feather in Jeff Ames’s Crimson Tide cap.

The 2014 Rudius Kaley Elizabeth Cabernet Sauvignon is another broad-shouldered, opulent, and polished wine, and this is your chance to claim yours before another sky-scraping Parker review points every serious Cabernet collector — as well as the early-drinking hedonists — in Jeff Ames’s direction.