2022 Pilcrow Cabernet Sauvignon Granite Lake Vineyard Howell Mountain Napa Valley 750 ml

Pilcrow is one of the best classically styled Napa Cabs we’ve tasted, and their 98-point 2022 Granite Lake Howell Mountain Cab is the exact kind of elegant, harmonious, ageworthy Cabernet that is getting everyone’s attention. Decanter called it “just gorgeous” and “a masterful expression of site” in their 98-point review, which puts it with some very impressive competition, including Bryant Family’s Bettina ($380) and Cardinale ($400).

We’ve known Sara and Jonah Beer of Pilcrow since long before Decanter listed them alongside Dalla Valle, Larkmead, and Kapscándy as one of Napa Valley’s Top 10 producers.

Sara and Jonah founded Pilcrow inspired by classics like Heitz, Spottswoode, and Diamond Creek, and this is a perfect example of their style. Sourced from a vineyard more than 2,000 feet above sea level, it’s all about refined power and density: blackberries and currants, intertwined with cedarwood and wild sage, indicative of the mountain terroir. It’s got fine-grained mountain tannins that are beautifully composed now but will serve this wine well for the next two decades plus. 

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW of The Wine Independent—and the former head of Wine Advocate—dedicated a long article to Pilcrow, calling their wines “beautifully crafted, pure, shimmery Cabernets that demonstrate ripeness as naturally expressed by each vintage.” Her conclusion: “This is a mailing list to jump on now.”

Sara and Jonah’s reverence for the classics is evident in their treatment of the wine. They don’t use extended macerations, micro-oxygenation, or heavy oak—nothing that masks the wine’s terroir. The 2022 Granite Lake Cabernet bottle comes from a vineyard at the ridgeline of Howell Mountain (just over 2,000 feet), a site heavy in iron and volcanic debris.

They aged the wine for 22 months in just 44% new French oak, a modest amount that allows for the structure of the wine to remain predominantly fruit-based. The result is a wine that promises to thrive in the cellar, but develops beautifully in the glass when drunk young.