2016 Anderson Conn Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Newest Napa-Designate Cabernet From an Icon

If you love Napa Cab as much as we do, don’t hesitate on this one.

Last year, Todd Anderson and Rob Hunt made waves: For the first time ever, Anderson’s Conn Valley bottled a Napa Valley-designate Cabernet Sauvignon. What made headlines was the fact that it was culled from the same estate-grown fruit as their $125 Reserve, which had previously been sold to some of the most prestigious wineries in the valley. In 2015, they ignored their voicemails, let the phones ring, and kept it all in-house, bottling the remainder of their precious mountain fruit under this new label—at less than half the cost of the Reserve. In a short time, 72 Wine Access clients rated that first vintage 4.12 out of 5 stars.

Today’s 2016 ACV Cabernet Sauvignon release is upstaging the 2015—Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate called it “profoundly earthy,” with a “core of baked plums and warm cassis” in a 93-point review. ACV’s latest is a fresh, vibrant Cabernet that isn’t easily forgotten. We find it abundantly ripe, bursting with blueberry compote and stewed blackberry notes, leading to a charming cherry pie-spice finish with vanilla-tinged complexity. It’s one to cherish.

Every single winemaker tells us the same thing—among Napa’s incredible string of great vintages, 2016 is going to be the absolute best. “Mother nature is making me look good,” Hunt kidded with us. The start of the season was cooler than previous years, a factor that continued into July and August, which meant longer hang-times for grapes across the Napa Valley. From mid-August to September, heat spells came and went, but for the most part, temperatures hovered in the mid-80s to 90s across the valley, translating to slow ripening, while acids remained firmly in check, “some of the most natural acid levels I’ve seen in years,” one reputable 100-point winemaker told us at this year’s Auction Napa Valley.

The ACV Napa Valley Cabernet has the same exact origins as the Reserve—the estate vineyards, which are some of the steepest, and rockiest parcels in Napa—and while 2014 was undoubtedly a historic vintage in Napa Valley, 2016 is quietly being hailed as the greatest since 2012, and one that will best even Parker’s “greatest vintage in 37 years,” the 2013s.