2017 Dalla Valle Vineyards Collina Red Wine Napa Valley 750 ml

This is a rare chance to get your hands on a bottle of Dalla Valle, a bonafide Napa Valley legend. In fact, “legend” doesn’t quite cut it. Cult wine of this caliber is simply beyond labels. Perfect for any cellar or simply as an investment, it’s a rarity that will be snapped up immediately.

Last year, at a Gramercy Tavern lunch with Naoko and Maya Dalla Valle, we discovered to our surprise that, even with their name on some of the greatest bottles America has ever seen, they’re just as enthusiastic about the wines as we are. Over the course of a leisurely two-plus hour meal, we were prepared to enjoy the wines, sure, but to sip them the way most glasses of iconic red get consumed: Gingerly, and with a sense of ceremony.

Nope: Naoko and Maya kept our glasses full, insisting that we enjoy them fully. The 2017 Collina stole the show—no easy feat amongst their standout releases—with its exotic spice aromas, supported by blackberry, licorice, graphite, and a cashmere-smooth texture. After waxing poetic about its irresistible plum, blueberry, and black cherry fruit, woven together with remarkable complexity, they even sent us home with the leftovers. This meant that we likely became the only people in our swanky hotel that night enjoying highly allocated wine, from a 100-point-scoring producer, on our couches with room-service hamburgers. Which, for the record, was an incredible pairing.

We can’t stress this enough: Dalla Valle, one of the greatest of California’s cult producers, crafts some of the most coveted wines in the country. Aside from a handful of top restaurants (The French Laundry, for example, lists bottles of Dalla Valle Maya for $1,500 each), members of their mailing list buy up almost all of their new releases.

And if you want to get on the mailing list—well, good luck. First, you’ll have to spend years on the waiting list before finally (if ever) receiving notification that you’ve been granted the privilege of buying directly from the winery. But as fate would have it, thanks to our personal relationship, we were able to grab a small share of their usual restaurant allocation for Wine Access members. 

Which is how we came to possess this masterpiece, the 2017 Dalla Valle Collina, a bottle that Jeb Dunnuck called “a beautiful wine that certainly has the classic vibe of the estate” and “a stunning value.” No surprise from a 100-point estate that’s been turning out beyond-belief wines for decades.

The name Collina translates to “hill” in Italian, and it’s been given to this incredibly delicious red because the majority of the fruit comes from the younger vines of Dalla Valle’s legendary hillside blocks. Winemaker Andy Erickson (who also has crafted the wine at Screaming Eagle) and internationally renowned consulting enologist Michel Rolland (who has worked with Harlan, Château Ausone, and countless other top producers around the world) have, with the 2017, brought together 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Cabernet Franc, and 9% Petit Verdot to create a wine that strikes that most elusive balance: It’s phenomenal right now and already speaks to the pedigree of the fruit and the producers’ impeccable vision, but is also capable of aging for decades with the grace and complexity that all of Dalla Valle’s wines are known for.

When Gustav and Naoko Dalla Valle started in 1982, they could have had no idea that the wines bearing their name would rise to the level of international cult classics that they have. And they also couldn’t have known that their daughter Maya, named after their famous vineyard, would one day play such an important part in carrying on the family’s name and values. But both have come to pass, and the wines of Dalla Valle are as inspiring and rare now as they have ever been.