2014 Stone the Crows Cabernet Sauvignon Three Twins Vineyard Napa Valley 750 ml

Rare Flagship Cabernet Prize

Almost a year ago, we offered the last cases of Stone the Crows “Fallen Feather” Napa Cabernet. But the winery’s flagship bottle was off-limits—until today. The 95-point 2014 Stone the Crows Napa Valley Cabernet was produced by the Wall Street Journal’s “most successful winemaker in California,” who this past November landed on Wine Spectator’s must-read cover story: “The Midas Touch of Thomas Rivers Brown.”

With more than 25 100-point scores, including the only California Cab Spectator ever awarded a perfect rating, Brown is a winemaking master. You might know some of his clients: Schrader, Round Pond, Outpost, Revana, Mending Wall, or his own Rivers-Marie wines. But this tiny-production Stone the Crows is near-impossible to find. Just 5 barrels were made of the 2014—it’s full-bodied, rich, and densely packed with layers of ripe black cherry, blackberry, and blueberry fruit; surprisingly light on its feet, underscored by fine French oak. The grape source—a world-class Napa site in Conn Valley called Three Twins Vineyard—was planted by Bill Harlan’s Napa Valley Reserve vineyard crew. A rare prize for the taking.

Last July, four months before his friendly smile would don Spectator’s November 2018 cover issue, I met Brown at Mending Wall, a state-of-the-art facility designed by Brown himself, just off the Silverado Trail north of St. Helena, California. From expensive French Darnajou barrels, we sampled the young, still-aging 2016 vintage of Stone the Crows, then took our glasses to a private tasting room to talk.

Everything Brown knows about winemaking he learned on the job. In the late 1990s, he met Ehren Jordan while working at All Seasons, a wine shop in Calistoga. Jordan liked Brown’s easy-going, inquisitive attitude and offered him a job as an assistant at Turley Wine Cellars. “I was so happy for the privilege,” Brown told me.

Some 20 years after taking that job, Brown is unquestionably a master winemaker. He makes wines for 45 clients, but beyond a handful, most labels rarely make it outside the confines of private collectors’ deep-walled cellars. Stone the Crows fits squarely into that category. Today, for a short time, the doors are open to a lucky few Wine Access members.

Today, Brown is the most-sought-after Napa consultant, and it’s largely because of his uncompromising demand for quality vineyards. "If someone doesn't have a vineyard or doesn't understand the business, that's an easy ‘no,' " Brown told Spectator. "If you harvest B+ grapes, you'll get B+ wines," he said. The author, James Laube, added: “He's learned how to pick his wine partners. All of his clients have A+ vineyards.”

The story of how Rick and Karen Talmadge, proprietors of Stone the Crows, enlisted Brown is one for the record books. “When Rick and I were trying to meet, we both happened to be in Paris,” he said and laughing about the absurdity of it, added, “so we had our first meeting on the Champs-Élysées. We had a beer in one of the bistros—that got the ball rolling.”

Rick had purchased a property in Conn Valley, and through his friendship with Bill Harlan, had the tiny 4.5-acre Three Twins Vineyard planted by Harlan’s Napa Valley Reserve crew. “There are multiple exposures, some flat, mostly on steep slopes that run straight downhill looking southeast to Lake Hennessy and northeast to Pritchard Hill—it’s a stone’s throw from a site that goes into BOND’s Melbury bottling,” Brown explained.

The vineyard is planted to Cabernet Clone 337, which provides a rich, red-fruited, higher-toned, profile, to which Brown layers in Clone 169, adding black fruit and muscle. In 2014, Brown produced a mere 117 cases of Stone the Crows flagship Cabernet. After aging 20 months in French oak, the wine rested another 9 months prior to release in June of 2016.

I received a call from Rick late last week. He’d held onto exactly 25 cases, believing it needed a bit more time in the bottle. With production so low, I was surprised to hear he held onto any. I had tasted this vintage upon release, and indeed, after a few more years in bottle, tasting it over the weekend, the robust tannins that Brown had coaxed out of the grapes had softened, the fruit profile perfectly integrated with the oak spices—it’s a seamless wine today. Knowing that Wine Access Cabernet lovers snapped up every last bottle of his second label, Fallen Feather, Rick felt the best way he could show his appreciation was by offering the remaining few bottles of his flagship Cabernet to us.  

Cheers,

Jonathan Cristaldi

Wine Writer and Wine Access Contributor