2023 Concept Album Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

A sleepy bar at the Chicago Midway airport was the last place we expected to stumble across an NDA deal that smashes the conventions of Napa Cab pricing.

When the pant-suited woman with the Minnesota Nice accent sitting two barstools down struck up a conversation, we had zero clue where it was going to lead: to a seamless blue-chip marvel crafted by an iconic talent!

At first, the small talk was just that: chatting about work—ours in wine retail, hers in pharmaceuticals. That’s when she mentioned that her son worked in Napa—for a really great winery, she said.

It’s the sort of thing we hear a lot (about not-so-great wineries, alas). But then she told us the name of the place, and we just about did a spit take of overpriced Don Julio. Her son worked there? Our polite interest took a sharp turn for the genuine. 

The legendary winemaker that runs this passion-project label has produced cult bottlings for three of Napa’s biggest names, including the one that defines Bordeaux-style elegance in California. He’s got handshake contracts with the best growers from Coombsville to Oakville, dating back to the 1990s, plus an impossible-to-crack mailing list whose releases max out around 120 cases each.

With just a name and phone number to go off, by the time our flight touched down in Sacramento, we knew his title (Head of Strategic Partnerships), his email, a handful of shared connections, and had set up a phone call for the Uber ride home. After a quick laugh about how we got connected (“Gee, thanks Mom!” he joked), we got down to brass tacks. 

“It was going to be a play for exclusivity, a high-spender crowd,” he told us. “But right now, we’d be thrilled if we could get it off our books without much fuss. I’ve got shiners—if we can work out a price and you don’t have our name anywhere near it, you can put whatever label you want on them!”

Thanks to an assist from a nice Midwestern mom, we scored an outstanding Napa Cab deal!