99-pt. Schrader Cellars To Kalon Cabernet — ’Sexy, Voluptuous, Hedonistic’ (Dunnuck)

WHY BUY: 44 perfect 100-point wines, more than any producer in Napa history: that’s the pedigree of Schrader Cellars, and that’s what makes every bottle of theirs (crafted by superstar winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown, with fruit sourced from Beckstoffer's legendary To Kalon Vineyard) a must-have. And today we’re bringing you 7 of their most sought-after wines, including their 99-point To Kalon Cabernet 2023 and their 98+ point Monastery Block 2023. Most people wait two to three years to get on to Schrader Cellar's legendary waitlist. Well, today, we’ve keyed the door and gained you entry. 

 

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Jeb Dunnuck awarded 99 points to the To Kalon Cabernet 2023, calling it “a complex, nuanced, incredibly layered profile” with “full-bodied richness, a round, lush mouthfeel, velvety tannins, and a great finish” — a “sexy, voluptuous” and “hedonistic” wine. He gave 98+ points to the Monastery Block 2023, lingering over its notes of "red and black currants, spicy wood, graphite, and crushed stone,” and noting an “almost scorched earth, Graves-like character” that leads up to the “blockbuster finish.” The Wine Advocate handed 96 points to the Heritage Clone 2022, praising its nose of “black cherries, loam, dried spices and dark chocolate” and its “silky-textured and harmonious” palate, calling it “a terrific wine from a challenging vintage.”

OUR TASTING NOTES: Every wine in this offer traces back to Beckstoffer's To Kalon Vineyard, widely regarded as Napa Valley's greatest source of Cabernet Sauvignon. What makes it special is the marine sediment of the soil, with its rich mineral deposits, and the alternating forces of a hot sun that bakes it during the day and a cooling fog that rolls in at night. And Thomas Rivers Brown has sought to honor this unique terroir, and in a unique way. Instead of blending the fruit of the vineyard blocks into one flagship wine, he takes an obsessive, clone-by-clone approach to the vineyard, isolating specific blocks and specific Cabernet clones to produce their own micro-bottling. What that means in the glass is wines or richness but also definition, that are beautifully structured but that lead with aromatics and texture. Or, to put that another way: these are crowd-pleasers that first and foremost please the wine geeks and collectors. The fruit is dense and concentrated, the tannins are plush, and the finishes are statements in themselves, soft and smooth and long. To spend any length of time with any of these wines is to understand immediately why Brown's client list runs to 45 estates … and why people wait years just to get a chance at a taste of his handiwork.

THE STORY: Schrader made two extraordinary moves that set his winery on its course, securing fruit from Beckstoffer's storied To Kalon Vineyard and hiring a young winemaking wunderkind, Thomas Rivers Brown. The results have been nothing short of astounding, producing 44 perfect 100-point scores, a record for Napa Valley. And the best part of this story is, it all began at a tasting. Schrader was operating another winery when he tasted a 1999 barrel sample at a Valley estate one day and was thunderstruck. He tracked the fruit of that wine back to its source (To Kalon vineyard, in Oakville) and drove straight to grower Andrew Beckstoffer's office to lock down a lease before anyone else got the same idea. He followed that canny move with another, hiring Rivers Brown, a man who, to that point, was a young and largely unproven talent. Brown’s obsessive, meticulous, and super-deliberate approach in the vineyard bore immediate (and striking) results. And soon enough, the scores followed at a pace almost nobody (including Schrader and Rivers Brown) could believe.

WHAT TO PAIR THEM WITH: Big, generous wines call for dishes that don’t shy at all from either flavor or richness: a dry-aged porterhouse, say, or a rack of lamb crusted in wild thyme, or a pot of slow-braised short ribs.

FUN FACT: Schrader's most coveted bottling, "Old Sparky," is a reference to Fred Schrader's nickname, and is released exclusively in magnum.

OUR GUARANTEE: As always, we only buy and source directly from the producer, so rest assured: your wines will arrive in your hands as they should, with pristine provenance. Secure your bottles and cases today!