2019 Aperture Cellars Soil Specific Red Wine Alexander Valley 750 ml

Our small allocation of Jesse Katz’s monumental and spellbinding 2019 Aperture Soil Series Red Blend Alexander Valley is one of your best shots at a bottle from a rising-star winemaker. Drawn from sites on the cool hillsides of Alexander Valley, it’s crafted with the savoir faire Katz absorbed across 20 harvests at iconic properties like Petrus, Screaming Eagle, and Viña Cobos. 

At just 37 years old, Katz has already made one of the world’s most expensive wines (a $350,000 Cabernet sold at auction) and a Malbec that Robert Parker speculated “may be the finest I have ever tasted from California.” He’s also been named a Wine Enthusiast 40 Under 40 Tastemaker and a Wine Spectator Rising Star, and he was the first winemaker to land on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. 

So what does a winemaker—not even 40 yet!—tackle after all that? Katz headed to Sonoma to try and do things no one’s done before. Vineyards like the ones he chose for the Soil Specific Red Wine are still being studied and understood, and Katz told us that the region is decades behind Napa in terms of site selection. There’s an opportunity to make a mark there by raising red blends like this one to unprecedented heights while keeping prices in the wheelhouse of everyday buyers.

The vitality and muscle of this blend, grown in clay-loam soils, starts with Malbec and Merlot, then gets an extra dose of tannin and structure from small amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. Wrap it all up in 45% new French oak and 18 months of aging in 60-gallon barrels, and you’ve got the makings of a future California legend.