2017 Dana Estates Cabernet Sauvignon Helms Vineyard Napa Valley 750 ml

Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Dalla Valle, Bond: The list of truly iconic, rare wines from Napa Valley is short and sweet. Firmly on that list is Dana Estates, a winery so spectacular that one speaks in hushed tones when referring to it.

The 2017 Helms Vineyard Cabernet comes from the vineyard that surrounds Dana's hallowed winery in the Rutherford AVA. The certified organic and dry-farmed site yields singular wines every year, but the 2017 is poised to be one of Dana's finest in history. Complete with a 99-point score, and shower of critic praise this sumptuous and elegant Cabernet will be a showpiece for decades to come. We recommend securing a few bottles to cherish over special occasions.  

Planted atop a well-drained, sloped alluvial fan, it delivers the silty fine-grained tannins that to define Rutherford, as well as red and black currant, cassis, mocha, dried savory herbs, while showing a ballerina-like elegance on the palate. It's no surprise this found its way onto Suckling's Top 100 Wines of 2020 listing.

We know that special wines come from unique places, but Dana makes most estates look pedestrian... just getting to their hallowed estate is an experience. The entrance takes you down a winding road, up a gradual incline, past vines wholly coveted and precious, to a bright perch in the foothills of the Mayacamas. The winery hides behind an unmarked wooden gate. Built around the ruins of an old stone winery that dates back to the 1880s, proprietor Hi-Sang Lee hired Howard Backen—the architect who designed Meadowood, Harlan, Ovid, Ram’s Gate, and Futo—to restore the old edifice and construct a new state-of-the-art winery around the ruins.

Walking past the quiet solitude of centuries-old stone walls, you can literally feel the respect and reverence Dana harbors for past generations. Once inside, a tour of the Rotunda—Hi-Sang Lee’s personal cellar—reveals a display of old and rare bottles of the finest wines in the world: magnums signed by the winery owners of Screaming Eagle, Araujo, Pétrus, Cheval Blanc, Harlan, on and on. It is awe-inspiring to see, and riveting to partake in a tasting when Lee starts pulling corks, which he does often because he likes to calibrate his own wines with the world’s best.

Although every modern winemaking option is afforded, the winemaking at Dana is remarkably old-school. Winemaker Chris Cooney steers the ship, working closely with consultant Philippe Melka. Incredibly, they’ve got three fermentation rooms: one for cement tanks, one for oak aging, and one for barrel fermenting—all uniquely paired with a vineyard site, something rather unheard of even in Napa.