2015 Fait-Main Cabernet Sauvignon Sleeping Lady Vineyard Napa Valley 750 ml

Limitless Rise of a Napa Cabernet Star

Benoit Touquette has arrived at an almost unimaginable pinnacle as a Napa winemaker, authoring eight 100-point wines for Realm in the last three vintages alone. Benoit learned by working alongside Andy Erickson—sharing responsibilities in the famed cellars of Screaming Eagle, Dalla Valle, Arietta, and Ovid—and has poured all he learned into his own Fait-Main label. The BB-sized berries coming off the west Yountville foothills of the Sleeping Lady Vineyard yielded a mere 145 cases (6 barrels) of the 2015 Fait-Main Cabernet Sauvignon Sleeping Lady. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate called it “concentrated and packed with black fruits and spice layers in the mouth,” pinning on 94 points. But Jeb Dunnuck found it “full-bodied, seamless and super elegant” and “just another sensational wine from Benoit Touquette that’s more than worth your time and money,” and worthy of 96 points. The world is catching on to what we have known for years: that Benoit Touquette is a winemaker of limitless potential. Our years-long friendship is to thank for our 14-case allocation. Shipping included on all orders.

We have long believed that Benoit Touquette would become a household name, and we have both been looking forward to and dreading the day. Looking forward to it because we know Touquette and are nothing but thrilled for his success. Dreading it because we fear that no friendship, no matter how strong, can withstand the law of supply and demand.

Whether or not we feel the effects of Benoit’s growing stature and the blossoming demand for his wines, one thing is for sure: We have passed the Benoit Touquette tipping point. There is simply no way that a winemaker with his track record—eight 100-point wines in the last three vintages—can avoid Superstardom with a capital S.

“Brilliant across the board,” is how Jeb Dunnuck sums up Touquette’s 2015 Fait Main lineup. His Sleeping Lady Cabernet comes from a vineyard in the Yountville foothills, which was recently acquired by Giancarlo Bertinelli, son of legendary Napa grower Larry Bertinelli. What once was a country retreat for Gold Rush-era San Franciscans is now a rustic-feeling but thoroughly modern site planted with six clones of Cabernet Sauvignon. Benoit works with the growers to determine the final blend, which is aged in 85% new French oak. Concentrated and lively with gorgeous structure, this is an opulent wine that will be stellar in the short term, and will only improve over the next decade.