2018 Robert Keenan Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley (375 mL) Half-Bottle

Sourced from the jagged peaks of Spring Mountain in northwest Napa Valley, Keenan is almost literally in a realm of its own. Founded over 40 years ago, their estate vineyards overlook Napa Valley from a rugged perch well above the fog line. That’s where Stanford-educated Robert Keenan—an insurance guy turned winemaker overnight—had settled while his contemporaries were setting up shop down in the valley. Today, the family winery is run with class and fortitude by his son Michael Keenan, and the wines are as good as they have ever been.

Keenan’s intense, black-fruited Napa Cabernet follows the same script each vintage: Cabernet Sauvignon grown at the Keenan Estate brings impeccable mountain fruit and tannin to the final blend, which also includes eastern Pope Valley Cabernet for aromatic complexity, a balanced midpalate, and depths of blue and black fruit. The result is pure alchemy: the kind of elegant example of Napa Valley know-how that competes with Cabernets that go for twice the price. 

This mountain Cabernet blossoms with aromas of raspberry, wild strawberry, and steeped red roses, accented by mineral-rich notes of graphite and pencil shavings. Boasting a powerful mouthfeel that’s broad and generous, it’s complex and integrating nicely, full of dark cherry, cocoa, and a savory ferrous quality that resolves in rich, elegant, mellow tannins.   

This 2018—from a FABULOUS harvest that represented the 42nd vintage of this renowned winery—is the kind of Cabernet that inspired Robert Parker to praise Keenan’s “Midas touch.”