2023 Blackbird Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Aaron Pott is a 100-point winemaker who made his name at Quintessa and at Bordeaux’s legendary Troplong Mondot. His wines are the kind of bottles that collectors plan around. They routinely trade at $150–$200 and up, are built from some of the finest fruit in Napa Valley, and are made with a precision that is immediately apparent in the glass.

The Manifest is one of Blackbird’s hallmark Cabernet Sauvignons. It draws from three distinct Napa sites: a high-elevation estate in the Vaca Mountains, the Blackbird estate in Oak Knoll, and Fontanella on Mt. Veeder. It represents the fullest expression of what Pott and Blackbird set out to do: a Cabernet of real structure and generosity, built to age but impossible to resist young.

Pott trained under John Kongsgaard at Newton before being recruited to Bordeaux, where he made wine at Troplong Mondot—a Premier Grand Cru Classé in Saint-Émilion—and at Château La Tour Figeac. Back in California, he took the helm at Quintessa before striking out on his own as one of the Valley’s most sought-after consultants. Food & Wine named him Winemaker of the Year. The critics who follow his work tend to run out of superlatives.

At Blackbird, he has had the run of some extraordinary fruit. The mountain estate sits on the steep eastern flank of the Valley, in hills that are home to some of Napa’s most coveted Cabernet. It contributes the wine’s spine: the mountain tannins, the dark mineral core, and the structural ambition that signals a wine built to go somewhere. The Oak Knoll estate, on the valley floor in one of Napa’s most reliably plush AVAs, rounds out the midpalate with generous dark fruit and the silky texture the district is known for. Fontanella, high on Mt. Veeder, brings altitude and grip—a stony, vertical energy that keeps the whole thing honest.

The 2023 vintage gave all of that fruit every advantage. After years of drought, Napa was drenched by one of its wettest winters on record. Soils recovered, and vines entered the growing season in extraordinary health. What followed was one of the longest and most even-tempered harvests in recent memory. There were cool mornings, steady warmth, and no heat events of consequence, so patient growers could hang their fruit on the vine deep into October. It is a vintage already being discussed the way serious collectors talk about 2013 and 2016: one that will age gracefully and reward those who paid attention early.

The Manifest arrives in the glass with a dense dark ruby core. Violet and black cherry aromatics wind through dark chocolate, cigar spice, and graphite. The midpalate is generous and juicy, and the abundant tannins are polished enough to drink now and structured enough to cellar for years.