I was at The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan picking up my monthly club selections and I was invited to try three wines proffered by a wine salesman who was trying to sell the wines to either the store, their restaurant or both.  Three Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon wines, a great way to start the day.   

The first wine was Brilliant Mistake Cabernet Sauvignon Napa 2021 in a black bottle that comes from Italy.  John and Stacy Reinert are the founders and proprietors of Brilliant Mistake who came from different backgrounds, but came up with a wine that became a hit in 2014 with fifty-five cases of wine.  They have as their winemaker Maayan Koschitzky, who worked at other cult wineries like Screaming Eagle and Dalle Valle.  There are no production notes, as everything I guess is proprietary.  The 2021 vintage provided them with small yields of high-quality pure Cabernet Sauvignon from their sourced vineyards in Rutherford and Oakville.  The vines took advantage of longer hang times and thinner canopies. A deep garnet/ purple colored wine that offered notes of black fruits, cassis, spices, lead pencil shavings and florals.  On the palate tones of black cherry, cassis, vanilla, and fine-grained tannins finishing with a long finish of fruit and terroir.  This was a big and chewy powerhouse, a truly elegant wine that just stunned me with its majesty and unfortunately, it was the first wine that I tasted, so the other wines didn’t have a chance.  I don’t usually talk prices, but from my conversations, this wine is totally underpriced for the category that it is in, and in blind tastings, this wine would could keep the professionals guessing.  This wine was amazing, as it was jostled in a winemaker’s satchel and poured with a Coravin system, right from the bottle.  With some cellar time, short or extended, and then decanted everyone tasting it, would be in heaven.

The second wine that I had courtesy of the wine salesman was Castiel Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 2019.  Dave and Kathleen DiCesaris are the owners of Castiel Estate and the eighty-eight acres on Howell Mountain overlooking St. Helena.  While there is no “Howell Mountain” it is named after a small township and it was the first Napa Valley sub-region to get its AVA in 1984.  To be part of appellation, the vineyards must be planted from 1,400 feet to 2,200 feet above sea level.  The first vintage was in 2014 and all harvesting is done manually and requiring several passes to get the fruit at full maturity.  The soil is pumice ash flow and andesite rock.  At the winery, clusters are destemmed, and berries are chosen both by manual and optical sorting methods.  They use four clones of Cabernet Sauvignon that are planted in their own plots.  During fermentation, the wine is left on the skins until complete and then pressed and transferred to French Oak barrels of which sixty-five percent is new.  Each clone was fermented separately and kept apart for the first twelve months.  The wines were then blended and returned to the barrels for an additional eight month.  The wine was then bottled without fining or filtering and five-hundred-twenty cases were produced.  A deep garnet colored wine that offers notes of currants, black cherry, sage, and cloves.  On the palate there were tones of dark fruit and spices, blended with satiny tannins and a nice long finish of black cherry and terroir.

The third wine that I enjoyed from the salesman’s satchel was Purlieu Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2019.  Purlieu in the literal sense means “the edge of the forest” or “an outlying area.” Symbolically, for the winery it means to explore the outskirts and to navigate the boundaries of what is a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.  They have contracts with seven different vineyards.  The Teucer Vineyard in Coombsville which is the coolest and longest growing season with its two different soils; one being colluvium deposits and the other being flaky volcanic ash.  To Kalon Vineyard, which some feel should be named a “Grand Cru” is in Oakville with its mostly clay loam.  The Georges III Vineyard in Rutherford.  The Missouri Hopper Vineyard in Oakville, goes back to the 19^th Century.  Sugarloaf Vineyard on the rocky slopes of southeaster Napa on dense volcanic rock.  Martinez Vineyard is atop of Pritchard Hill in the Vaca Mountains on soil of iron, red clay, and boulders.  Platt Vineyard on the ridgeline above the Sonoma Coast fog line known for its Goldenridge loam soils from an ancient sea floor.  I couldn’t find any production notes, but there were one-thousand-one-hundred-fifty-four cases of wine produced.  The dark garnet wine offered notes of blueberry, blackberry, and purple florals.  On the palate tones of big blue and red fruits, espresso, vanilla, with soft tannins and a nice medium count finish of berries and a touch of caramel.