2019 Steele Cabernet Sauvignon Red Hills Lake County 750 ml

When Andy Beckstoffer places a bet, you should pay attention.

California’s most famous, cowboy-hat-wearing grapegrower has minted millions by playing the long game and getting terroir right, time and time again. His blue-chip Napa vineyards—To Kalon, Georges III, Dr. Crane—are among the most iconic in the country.

In recent years, he’s made a 2,000-acre bet on Red Hills in Lake County—what he approvingly calls “Cabernet land,” in his distinctive Virginia drawl. 

Crafted by Red Hills pioneer Jed Steele, this knockout red was drawn off Beckstoffer’s prized Amber Knolls vineyard, sitting at up to 2,500 feet in elevation. Extolled by Wine Enthusiast as “bold and tightly wound” and “super concentrated,” it’s hands-down one of the best California Cabernet values of the year.

Steele came to Lake County on an invitation to help out a fledgling winery known as Kendall-Jackson. He shepherded the creation of a monster hit, KJ Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay, before striking out on his own to start Steele Winery in 1991 in Red Hills.

To the outsider’s eye, the region didn’t hold much promise, but Steele saw things differently—as did Beckstoffer.

Red Hills in the early 2000s, Beckstoffer said, reminded him of Napa in the 1970s: a farming community that produced good grapes, but whose wines had yet to catch up in quality. However, he saw a great opportunity, so he began buying up Red Hills farmland. Today, he says the region has already become the source of “premium quality North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon."

This 2019 vintage was Steele’s final vintage, and he sold the operation in 2020. As an extraordinary Cabernet value, it points to the future of a California AVA with unlimited potential.