2019 Color and Sound Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County Alexander Valley 750 ml

The Napa winemaker who crafted this bottle wears his cowboy hat and dusty jeans with authority: His family has farming roots in the region that stretch back over a century. They once owned 20,000 acres there. Now they have about 175.

His old-vine Oakville Cabs, grown down the street from Opus One, are the stuff of legend. But when we stopped by the 1800s-era barn on his ranch, what he wanted us to taste was actually grown 30 miles away—in Alexander Valley, the prized Sonoma County AVA.

He’d signed a deal to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon line for a luxury hotel chain, but to make the economics work, he needed fruit to blend with his own—and what he found in Alexander Valley blew him away.

It’s a top-of-the-line property in league with regional powerhouses like Ridge, Silver Oak, and Aperture.  We drafted behind the multimillion-dollar deal the winemaker cut with a Fortune 100 hospitality brand, zooming from behind at the last minute to pick up the barrel or two that exceeded their needs.

To be labeled as a Napa wine, only 85% of it has to come from Napa Valley. For example, our multigenerational friend blended the primo Alexander Valley juice he scored—high-toned, ruby-hued, and bright—with his purplish, highly extracted, and densely concentrated 2019 Cabernet.

Our own blend flips that ratio. The majority comes from that NDA-protected Alexander Valley source, and one sip shows incredible finesse, length, and lithe structure that’s made the AVA a favorite destination of Napa estates like Turley and Morlet Family Vineyards. A small percentage of our friend’s Napa Cab plumps the wine up with saturated color and black-fruit intensity.

The marriage is just right.