2023 Eisele Vineyard Altagracia Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 750 ml

Some of the most sought-after wines in Napa history have come from Eisele Vineyard.

Best known for Araujo’s priceless Eisele Cabernet, the site’s coveted fruit has supplied collectibles by luminaries like Joseph Phelps and Ridge’s Paul Draper. It’s no wonder that blue-chip Artémis Domaines—whose properties include First Growth icon Château Latour, Château Grillet, and Clos de Tart—made it their first Napa acquisition.

Altagracia, grown on the eastern blocks of Eisele Vineyard and named for former owner Bart Araujo’s grandmother, is one of the greatest values in Napa Valley—cult-Cabernet quality and provenance at a price that makes the flagship look unreachable by comparison.

Long before single-vineyard Cabs were commonplace, there was Eisele Vineyard. The site epitomizes why single-vineyard wines exist, because it offers a unique balance of elegance and power and stands alone in this part of the Valley for quality. The alluvial volcanic soils fanning out from the base of the Vaca Palisades offer terrific drainage, which translates first into low yields and then into concentrated character in the glass.

When it was first converted to agriculture in the 1840s, Eisele Vineyard was mostly used for pasturing cattle and horses and growing wheat. But in 1884 vines were planted here, and the future—not just of this plot of land, but of Napa Valley—was altered. Milt & Barbara Eisele purchased it in the ’60s, giving it their name and converting it to Cabernet Sauvignon. The Eisele name would start appearing on Ridge bottles shortly thereafter, when Paul Draper made it just the third vineyard-designated Cabernet bottled in Napa.

Daphne and Bart Araujo made their name in the world of wine by the careful attention they gave to their farming and their wines. It was the Araujos who converted the estate first to organic farming, then upped the ante again by integrating biodynamics—a standard the vineyard holds to this day under Demeter certification.

Today the estate is under the stewardship of Artémis Domaines. Winemaker Hélène Mingot builds the blend before élevage rather than after—a page taken from the group’s Bordeaux book. The 2023 Altagracia is 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Petit Verdot, aged 21 months in French oak (78% new, 22% used), and is certified organic by CCOF and biodynamic by Demeter.