2016 La Sirena Pirate TreasuRed Napa Valley 750 ml

Drop the name Heidi Barrett to a collector, then brace for the plaudits. She’s the “Queen of Cult Cabernet.” The “Wine Diva of Napa Valley.” The genius behind legendary wines from Dalla Valle and Grace Family—not to mention the record-breaking 1992 Screaming Eagle that sold at auction for half a mil.

No doubt about it, Heidi Barrett makes serious wines.

But cruise up Highway 29 to Calistoga and clink Zaltos with Heidi and her inner circle, your glass will be filled with the lush, seductive, and dense 2016 La Sirena Pirate TreasuRed, which manages to captures Heidi’s cult quality and swashbuckling spirit in one life-is-short, drink-anytime blockbuster of a bottle. 

La Sirena is the Calistoga-based label that Heidi founded in 1994, and the 2016 TreasuRed shows its pedigree in every opulent sip. A seductive and powerful blend of Cabernet Sauvignon with a smattering of Bordeaux and Rhône grapes, it’s bursting with blackberry preserves, lilacs, and violets, and layered with chocolate shavings and spice. Grand and seductive on the palate, its notes of graphite and dried herbs build to a mountain of powerful tannins that resolve in a long and memorable finish. 

It didn’t hurt that the 2016 Napa Valley vintage was an all-time great. A 98-pointer in the estimation of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, the season gifted the Valley with phenomenal fruit, making it an extremely wise move to buy as much as you can—especially when it’s one of the world’s top winemaker’s biggest bargains.