2016 Cenyth Red Wine Sonoma County 750 ml

A Bordelaise Legend’s Next-Generation Bet on Sonoma

Exclusive, rarely available outside of restaurants and the winery’s mailing list, the Robert Parker 94-point 2016 Cenyth Red Wine from Sonoma County is a densely aromatic, beautifully structured wine reminiscent of the Old World, but packed with pure California dark-berry fruit.

The winemaker is Hélène Seillan, daughter of multiple 100-point Parker legend Pierre Seillan of Vérité. Modeled after the great Right Bank French Bordeaux reds, made “in an elegant, almost St.-Emilion Cheval Blanc style,” as Parker has said, this Cenyth packs powerful pedigree into a uniquely Californian version of the untouchable Cheval Blanc ($665). 

It would be an understatement to call Hélène’s under-$75 red a savvy pickup. Her dad, Pierre, is the legendary winemaker who has garnered many perfect 100-point scores, producing masterful creations that retail for $175 and up—way up.  

Hélène trained right alongside her dad, meaning that his winemaking experiences since 2006, when she began working under him, are hers as well. “Yet the younger Seillan brings a startling degree of confidence to her now extensive oversight in the vineyard and cellar,” wrote Sara Schneider in a 2018 Robb Report story.

“‘Can I say this?’” she told Schneider, “‘I was putting my finger in the glass and tasting wine from the time I was three or four.’”

So, beyond a lifetime of familiarity with wine, just what has Hélène learned from her dad?

For starters, the Loire and Bordeaux superstar patriarch produces the world-renowned Vérité (current release is $410) as well as the wines of Château Vignot and Château Lassègue—powerful, richly tannic reds. And the secret to his perfect-scoring successes is all about identifying each vineyard’s “micro-cru” site, which he then vinifies separately. There may be 50 different “micro-cru” lots all fermenting from one vineyard alone, which all create their own micro-universe of complexities and bring to the final blend something far greater than the sum of all its parts.

Hélène applies the same methods and strict attention to detail that she and her dad practice on their other labels. In Cenyth, that means grapes sourced mostly from Sonoma’s legendary Chalk Hill estate, while smaller quantities are chosen from select sites in Bennett Valley, Knights Valley, and Alexander Valley. All that care, all that knowledge, with some of California’s best grapes going for under $100? This is a wine to enjoy early, and often.