2024 Cosmologist Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley 750 ml

His Cabernet is iconic. His rare Pinot Noir sells out faster than Labubu dolls. But when we finally got the winemaker behind this small, cult-favorite, NDA-shielded estate on the phone, we wanted to talk about one thing: his Sauvignon Blanc.

Crafted by a guy who has Napa’s most famous estate on his C.V., this Sauvignon Blanc has the linear elegance, orchard fruit richness, and the saline minerality of a bottle four times the price! But there’s no actual sale price to compare this to, because he’s never released his micro-production of intensely floral Sauvignon Blanc. Unlike his other cuvées—which you at least have a shot at if you make it onto the very competitive mailing list—you’ll never taste this wine unless you get an invite to his surf shack in Bodega Bay.

The winemaker first made his mark at the big Cab houses of Napa. For a while it seemed like he was destined to follow in the tracks of a Paul Hobbs or Thomas Rivers Brown figure—he was getting quoted in Wine Spectator and pulling down 98-point scores.

Then he took a turn. Ask him about it, and he’ll tell you about a fateful tarot card reading and his two beloved kids. But the short of it is he ditched his corporate winemaking gig, swapping the Patagonia vest for Vans and a Mother Hips hoodie, and started making the kind of wines that really light his fire. 

At his own (now acclaimed) venture, he retained many of the practices that helped put him on the map in Napa: native yeast fermentations, regenerative farming, dropping the toast level on barrels. The wines got leaner, and at times it was as if you could taste the salt spray of the coast where he now spends most of his free time.

We approached him about bottling some of his Sauvignon Blanc in our NDA-protected Cosmologist label. Surely it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he made a few bucks on his passion project, right?

Fortunately, his Napa Valley contacts remain strong. The vineyards he pulls from are protected from the late-afternoon sun and cooled by the creeping fogs, enjoying a luxuriously long growing season. Packed with green apple and zesty grapefruit, the 2024 juice is at once ethereally light and vibrant.