2023 Echoes in the Canyon Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Being an in-demand winemaker on the payroll at a big Napa Valley winery can be pretty sweet. You get compensated nicely for lending your name to the project, for tasting and blending, for making a few picking and bottling decisions. And it's drudgery-free: Most days you can just pull up in your Land Rover, call some shots, then speed off to your next gig.

One question though: If these high-paying gigs making high-scoring wines for iconic Napa Valley cellars are so dreamy, then why does just about every winemaker we know have a personal label? One that makes them do the most menial and tedious of labor, from the barrel scrubbing to the bookkeeping? They drive forklifts. They outsource next-to-nothing, crafting tiny quantities of wine with maximum care.

And when these winemakers have a few barrels left over that don't fit into the plan for their passion-project bottlings, they need to find a home for them. And that's a good thing for us.

We lucked upon the 2023 Echoes in the Canyon story at the home of one of our closest friends, Molly, who’s one of the best-connected players in Napa. When we arrived, she was already clinking glasses with another friend, a beloved winemaker retained by a half-dozen wineries to elevate their juice into the pantheon year after year. They do it, to the tune of 100-point scores from Parker, Dunnuck, and Galloni. For their efforts, they've earned Winemaker of the Year honors from a major magazine.

We'd only met them at events where they were obligated to talk up their patrons' wines. But here, they were all about their own label—and it's amazing how animated they can get talking about dragging hoses. They even brought a few bottles, including one without a label: a shiner.

The shiner represented a few barrels of 100% Cabernet that were outrageously good to our palates. The sources? They wouldn't say, but we happen to know that their main Cab comes from one of the most prized sites in Oakville's eastern hills. The reason it was available? They always dose their Cab with a little Cab Franc, and when they nailed the blend, there were a few barrels of pure Cabernet Sauvignon left over. And it was fantastic juice. They said as much.