2017 Band of Vintners Consortium Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

One Wine Access member thrilled with the last vintage of Band of Vintners put it this way: It “tastes like a $100 Cab for sure.” This is the kind of Napa Cabernet you’ll want to blind-test a friend or partner on and make them guess the price.

The nose alone would seem to place it at nearly three digits, an intoxicating, herb-flecked buffet of violet, blackberry, redcurrant, and black cherry. Round and plush on the palate, suffused with deep black fruit concentration, the streamlined tannins lead right on through to the one-minute finish—another giveaway that usually foreshadows a forbidding price tag.

Seamlessly integrated and masterfully balanced, the 2017 Band of Vintners is clearly the handiwork of an expert... and how many of those Napa Cabs are going for less than a $100 these days?

The odds are your friend is not going to guess $35—not by a long shot. And yet that is the price you will have paid for this bombshell Cabernet from one of Napa’s most impressive teams ever assembled.

It is indeed the work of an expert—seven of them, actually, including the 100-point talent behind Massican and Larkmead (and 2017 SF Chronicle Winemaker of the Year) Dan Petroski, and Long Meadow Ranch’s Stéphane Vivier, a protégé of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s Aubert de Villaine.

To land a sumptuous Napa Cabernet from winemakers of that caliber for just $35 is close to an impossibility—and so it will be once our allocation from the limited 2017 vintage sells out.

Band of Vintners is an Avengers-level team of wine professionals, highlighted by Decanter in a feature on “The New Names to Know in Napa.” Each brings singular skills and abilities to the table. In addition to Petroski and Vivier, the team includes Harlan alum and Master Sommelier Jason Heller; Spring Mountain Vineyard winemaker Barrett Anderson; Folio Fine Wine Partners VP Brennan Anderson; Anomaly Vineyards winemaker Mark Porembski; and Christie’s auction house veteran Cameron Hobel, who works with superstar vintner Thomas Rivers Brown at Hobel Wines.

Operating somewhat like a négociant, the group originally convened to taste wines and trade industry insights over potluck meals. With time, they discovered that the seven of them could work like a nerve center of California winemaking networks, with access to the best fruit, farmers, and minds in the business. They set out to leverage those connections to make the kind of wine they wanted to pour most nights: something that drinks like $120, but costs under $40.

In 2014 they launched the Consortium Cabernet Sauvignon, and instantly gained attention for its evocation of Napa richness and balance at one of the best values on the market. Three years later, it’s a supergroup phenomenon, bringing the best of Napa to the weeknight kitchen table at just $35 a pop.