2016 Diamond Creek Vineyards Volcanic Hill Cabernet Sauvignon Diamond Mountain Napa Valley 750 ml

Every cellar should include at least one of Diamond Creek’s legendary Cabernet expressions.

It may be a bold statement, but it’s one that few critics or California collectors would disagree with. Founded in 1968, Diamond Creek was one of the first Napa Valley wineries to emphasize individual terroirs with vineyard-designate Cabernets—and the very first to command $100 per bottle. Now that triple-digit prices are the norm for Napa Cabernet, there’s no single-vineyard Cabernet in the Valley that doesn’t owe its prestige to this pioneering winery. 

The south-facing Volcanic Hill Vineyard behind this wine is the warmest site on the Diamond Creek property, with fluffy gray ash soil that was deposited millions of years ago by the eruption of Mt. Konocti. The Cabernet it produced in 2016 is marked by decadent blueberry, cassis, and black plum fruit on the nose, with pie spice, clove, and cocoa powder undercurrents. Muscular but supple, it’s both approachable and serious, and will thrive through the years. Wine Enthusiast designated the 2016 a Cellar Selection, calling it “intensely powerful,” and Wine Advocate honored it with a stunning 99-point score.

Diamond Creek wines aren’t just rare, but the winery itself is a rarity—a classic whose Cabernets, fifty years after the winery’s founding, are better than ever before. Today we’re thrilled to bring you our first-ever allocation: 2016 and 2017 vintages of Diamond Creek’s Red Rock Terrace, Gravelly Meadow, and Volcanic Hill bottlings. These Cabernets introduced Napa Valley’s distinct terroir to the world, and whether you’re building on a vertical that dates back decades or just beginning a California Cabernet collection, they’ll be essential cellar showpieces for years to come.

In 1968, 80 acres of prune trees, shrubs, and rocks on Napa’s remote Diamond Mountain caught Al Brounstein’s eye. Since he was a budding oenophile with wine in mind, he showed the land to Beaulieu Vineyard’s famed André Tchelistcheff, and when the eminent winemaker gave the site his blessing, Al and his wife Boots bought the property. 

Bottling site-specific wines wasn’t Al’s plan when he set about clearing the land, but when his only helper turned up at the end of each day dusted in different-colored soil, Al realized he had diverse terroirs on his hands. So after he planted the plots with vine cuttings he’d snuck back from Bordeaux—known in the business as “suitcase clones”—he decided to name the wines after the plots that produced them: Red Rock Terrace, Gravelly Meadow, and Volcanic Hill. 

It was tough going at first, selling his site-specific Cabernets to a market that had never heard of such a thing. But eventually, the world caught on to Diamond Creek’s spectacular terroir and matching wines—so much, in fact, that fans were happy to pay the record-breaking triple-digit price. And fifty years later, Diamond Creek wines still represent a fantastic value, especially for a charter member of the Napa Valley Cabernet pantheon.