2016 Hill Family Estate The Barrel Blend Red Wine Napa Valley 750 ml

Doug Hill grows some of the best Merlot in the world on his 120 acres in Napa Valley. World-class producers like Duckhorn, Quintessa, David Ramey, Silver Oak, and Caymus rely on his pristine grapes to make their wines the collectors’ items they’ve become. Today, the 2016 Hill Family Estate The Barrel Blend Red Wine is your chance to experience that magic for just $25 per bottle.

This is the best of Napa Valley at a fraction of the usual price. James Suckling called it an “amazing value for Napa,” and we fell hard for it too. As soon as we tasted this rich, voluptuous red overflowing with blackberries, raspberries, chocolate, baking spices, and flowers, we knew we had to offer it to our members.

Turns out it was a good move, because this is such a stellar wine that you can’t even buy it at the winery: The winery guests were so impressed by its value that they were buying cases of it at a time and passing up the other excellent wines from Hill Family Estate. Now, only wine club members typically have access to The Barrel Blend at the source.  

This is a red blend that has absolutely everything going for it. It’s 41% Merlot that has been seamlessly integrated with Zinfandel, Malbec, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and more, offering as complete a view of Napa Valley as wines that cost three times as much. For fans of The Prisoner, this one is a surefire hit at a fraction of the price.

The blend itself is crafted by two of the superstars of the world of American wine: Winemaker Alison Doran, a disciple of Andre Tchelistcheff who has been with Hill Family Estate since the inaugural vintage and also worked with Lewis Family, and consulting winemaker Jean Hoefliger, the 100-point-scoring genius behind so many of the iconic wines of Alpha Omega, Clark-Claudon, and AXR.

The Barrel Blend consists of all estate fruit grown primarily on the Beau Terre Vineyard in Oak Knoll. Ryan Hill, the fourth generation of the Hill family to be involved in California agriculture, explained that this particular plot of land is totally unique in the appellation: A long time ago, a stream running down from the nearby Vaca Mountains cut a swath through it, depositing rocks and smaller stones from the hillsides. Today, Beau Terre is a valley-floor vineyard with terroir and drainage more typical of hillside land. The grapes that grow there develop in tiny clusters—“like caviar,” Ryan said—and have a skin-to-pulp ratio that guarantees intense concentration, color, and depth.

The final blend spent ten months in French oak barrels, 30% of them new, which has lent it a sense of silkiness alongside its inherent power, plus a subtle note of baking spice that will gain greater complexity with extended cellaring—though It’s already delicious. 

Ryan Hill likes to describe the 2016 The Barrel Blend as “like a lasagna,” because it brings together a whole range of components to create something that is greater, more interesting, and more delicious than its individual parts on their own. Also like lasagna, where one bite demands a second and then a third, this is the kind of wine that it’s hard to stop sipping.