2019 Spottswoode Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon St Helena Napa Valley 750 ml

“Wowsers.” 

What kind of wine could inspire a professional critic—let alone Lisa Perrotti-Brown, the hand-picked successor to Robert Parker who regularly tastes the flat-out greatest wines on planet Earth—to punctuate an already laudatory review with that word?

Take one taste of the 2019 Spottswoode Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and you’ll get it. 

From a winery that’s built their reputation on stunning Cabernet, this bottle stuns above and beyond. With a concentrated maroon-purple core, it opens to intense aromas of ripe blackcurrant, clove, and freshly rolled cigar, with supporting notes of blueberry, pencil shavings, and a bevy of exotic spices. The flavors continue on a palate of unbelievable richness, and it’s all carried on ripe, fine-grained tannins that will allow this wine to age for an eternity. 

This is a modern blockbuster in every sense of the word. 100 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. 98 from Decanter, who call it “one of top Napa Cabernet's of the vintage.” You want the 2019 Spottswoode Cabernet in your cellar, and there’s not a whole lot more to say about it. 

We’ve got just four cases, and we do not expect them to last long. 

Since its founding in 1982—exactly a century after the estate itself was established—Spottswoode has become an icon of Napa Valley. Located on the western edge of St. Helena, the winery’s Texas-shaped (minus the panhandle) vineyard is dominated by organically and biodynamically farmed Cabernet Sauvignon, with a bit of Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a picture-perfect site for grape growing: The alluvial clay-loam soils provide superb drainage, while the cool breezes that pass through the Mayacamas Range promote even ripening, even in the heat of St. Helena.

The 2018 Spottswoode Estate Cabernet consists of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, lifted by 6% Cabernet Franc and intensified by 4% Petit Verdot. After 20 months in 65% new French and Hungarian oak barrels, this is one of the most impressive Cabernets ever to come off the estate—and surely one of the greatest wines of Napa Valley’s excellent 2019 season.