2018 The Vice The House Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Great Napa Cabernet deals are never made by accident. There’s just too much inertia trending in the opposite direction, with demand at an all-time high, and grape prices clicking ever upwards.

Careful strategizing and bloodhound instincts for overperforming sites are needed to craft the rare, truly great under-$40 Napa bargains, and both were in abundance in the making of the monumental, gorgeously concentrated 2018 The House Cabernet. If you’re a Wine Access member, you can do one even better, nailing this mountain-based powerhouse for under $30!

Showing Napa Valley’s signature style—big, lush, and opulent—at a can’t-beat price, our members reacted so enthusiastically to the previous vintage of this wine that we bargained hard for a larger allocation this time. That also allowed us to whittle the pricing down to an unbelievable bargain: just $25 per bottle, 29% off the list price.

You could easily mistake the 2018 The House, sourced from three top vineyards, for a $150 Mount Veeder bottle. This delivers so much density and finesse for the price: a Napa Cab with all the hallmarks of a three-digit, blue-chip bottle for a premium deal.

Somebody on our team snuck today’s bottle, with a sale price of $35, into a blind-tasting line-up of Napa heavyweights mostly sourced from mountain AVAs like Mount Veeder, Howell Mountain, and Atlas Peak. With its muscular mouthfeel, broad tannins, and massive aromatics of macerated blackberries and sweet tobacco, the bottling fit right in with high-elevation dynamos that regularly pull down 96 points and fetch prices way over $100.

When the labels were revealed, along with the prices, we had two questions for The Vice founder Malek Amrani and winemaker Vance Rose, a veteran of classic Napa properties like Donum and Ehlers Estate. First, how much could we get for our members, and two, how in the world did they pull off a deal like this? Most estates consider even a $50 Napa Cab to be a value they have to scrimp and scrape to produce.

Their answer to the latter came down to a few points, they told us: be agile, keep overhead low, and focus on what you know. That meant tapping strategically targeted vineyards and plots they had experience with in certain appellations, and knew could deliver special results at a below-market price.

The backbone of the blend hails from a Mount Veeder vineyard where 1,050 feet of elevation cools the vines and slows ripening. The resulting high skin-to-flesh ratio translates into chewy concentration and big, full tannins. A St. Helena site traps heat from the sun, maturing quickly and providing a burst of ripeness, while a portion of cool Coombsville grapes tie the blend together, wrapped in silky texture, round softness, and a hint of spice.

Top all that off with 22 months in French oak barrels, bottled unfiltered and unfined, and you have a Napa Cabernet that might in other hands might cost three times as much. Today, for Wine Access members, this luscious, polished 2018 comes at just $25.