2014 Sueño Profundo Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 750 ml

Napa Valley Blue Chip at a Fraction of the Price

The 2014 Sueño Profundo Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford was culled from a blue-chip vineyard within spitting distance of Frog’s Leap and Caymus. Ry Richards’ profound, dark-fruited 2014 is cut from the same hallowed soils that have given birth to the legacies of Caymus, Staglin, BV, Sequoia Grove, and Cakebread. When Richards got the call from a friend at a big-time Rutherford winery, he jumped in his car and sped down Silverado Trail. After tasting the fruit on offer, “I was blown away,” he said. “They’d done very well in 2014, both in quality and quantity. The same fruit they offered me went into the winery’s $75 bottle Cabernet Sauvignon.” This is rock solid Napa Cabernet — ripe, juicy black fruit, with beautiful texture, mineral complexity, finesse, and young brilliance. Just $29 per bottle today.

From Yountville, on the short list for prettiest town in America, take the Silverado Trail or Highway 29 north, and be sure to roll down the windows long before you reach the historic town of St. Helena. You’ll pass right by the storied vineyards of Caymus, Staglin, BV, Sequoia Grove, and Cakebread — the Rutherford Bench at its best, home to some of Napa Valley’s greatest Cabernet Sauvignons.

“On a sun-drenched day, you notice something different as you pass through Rutherford,” Richards told us. “It’s like the air itself is infused with some kind of magic mineral scent.” That’s the “dust” so often associated with Rutherford, which builds sturdy, dusty, firm tannins, leading to incredibly long-lived wines from the appellation. “The soils in Rutherford are special,” Richards explained, “because they are mainly well-draining, gravelly, sandy and alluvial deposits from an ancient stream. Vines have to root down deep for nutrients, and that stress translates to incredible structure in the Cabernet from here.”