We hit Cain on Spring Mountain this weekend. Enjoyable tasting with their asst wine maker. Their Cain Concept is the bigger Napa style wine.
++1 on everything Mike Smith.
On one of your random days, you may want to try and hook up with Realm. Absolutely outstanding wines and super nice folks.
If you like Mark Herold’s signature/namesake Cabernets (Brown Label Coombsville and Stagecoach, and White Label), then you’ll probably like Celani’s Cabernet and Ardore Cabernet. Celani is a cool little place to stop by to taste just up the street from downtown Napa; their 2013 Cabernets are great.
Janzen, B-Cellars, Pott, Rudius, Buccella, and Switchback Ridge are also worth looking into.
Cheers!
Hey C Simmons, it’s LivermoreJ from Cellartracker btw. Thanks for the extra recommendations.
Grabbed a 2013 Bard and 2010 Farella when I visited Realm a little while back. Sadly those are long gone and I hope to be allocated some in the Fall. Really good.
Drank a 2012 Janzen To Kalon on my birthday that was really good. Want to try the Cloudy’s and Missouri Hopper.
B cellars is actually the winery that introduced us to Kirk Venge wines. It’s also just an amazing tasting experience. I feel like their Beckstoffers, Blend 26 (pre-2013 now that it’s a different blend), and Single Vineyard Cabs aren’t talked about as much his other projects, but they are amazing.
Having done a tasting at Phifer Pavitt (2012 was great), we also tasted Switchback Ridge and were really impressed by the merlot.
Definitely looking forward to the others you listed.
Ah hey Jason! What’s up?!
Cool! All the wines listed on this post are really good. The 2012 Janzen Cloudy’s was surprisingly awesome! Wound a little tight, but HIGHLY recommended in my opinion. Notes on CT. I picked up some more.
Herold has a new tadting room open that isn’t so funky and focuses on just his Cabs. Good, powerful stuff!!
Sounds like you guys know your way around already!! Any other places you’d recommend? We are up in Napa all the time.
Good to know about the Cloudy’s! Hopefully bounty hunter has one next time we are downtown.
Have you had Kamen? It’s the only mark herold cab i’ve had but it was tremendous. moon mountain fruit. They also have a great kashmir reserve and new '13 lava block cab. Ive been to the downtown sonoma tasting room but they also do tours of the mountain winery.
We’re members of hunnicutt so i would recommend doing a cave tour tasting in the early fall when they might have the new '13 935 reserve cab as well as the '13 georges iii that was already released (might be sold out). You’ll barrel sample their upcoming single vineyard cabs (lewelling and kenefick). Really good wine and even better people.
It’s not Napa, but here in Livermore I would recommend the reserve tasting at Steven Kent. 25 dollars for a great informational sit down tasting. Not venge/smith style, but very good wines. I think his Lineage bordeaux blend hovers around 14%. His most recent WS ratings for his top cab ('09) and bordeaux ('10) blend got 93 and 94 pts respectively. Steve heimoff gave the '11 lineage 96 points.
Thanks very much for the recommendations! I’ll definitely have to try Hunnicutt out for sure… That sounds like it’s right in my wheelhouse.
I will have to go back to Kamen for a redo. When I last went there I found their wines surprisingly lighter than expected. I had just been to Mark Herold, so that might’ve had something to do with it. Once spoiled with Herold’s namesake Cabs and Celani, I think Kamen is a harder sell for me. Check out Kobalt as well. That’s Herold, too. The 2013 is great, and a great QPR. I have a lot of CT notes on Herold’s wines.
K&L Wines has Cloudy’s in stock at the moment too… In case you ever make your way to the City…
I can see how the Kamen would be the lighter end of the spectrum.
Hunnicutt is one of the heavier Venge styles. I’d suggest grabbing a '13 reg cab or '13 georges before they sell out.
Will do for sure! Venge’s Bone Ash and Family Reserve were pretty awesome in 2013 too!!