Pahlmeyer 30th Anniversary Proprietary Red 2016

Jayson Pahlmeyer was determined to bring a Mouton Rothschild experience to California. Armed with a financial backing that would make most winery’s blush, he started by buying a super expensive piece of land atop Atlas Peak, smuggled in Bordeaux clippings from some of their most prized estates, hired a superstar winemaker who worked at both Chateau Haut Brion and Au Bon Climat, and went to work. He achieved his goal… and then some.

In the 35 years since Pahlmeyer’s founding, it has skyrocketed into becoming Napa Valley royalty and then may have even set a new bar. Multiple 100-point wines, yearly inclusion in the “best wineries of the world” lists and a 40-under-40 tastemaker recognition for their winemaker and you can say that they’re in rarefied air.

Then you mix in the fact that the four sources for the winery’s fruit are their own gorgeous estate vineyard on Atlas Peak, Stagecoach vineyard atop Pritchard Hill, Antinori Family’s Antica and Rancho Chimiles, and you realize that these guys are playing with a stacked deck. Not surprisingly, they boast a multi-year wait just to join the waitlist and then charge an arm and a leg for bottles, because their wine is that good (and they’ve got a lot of superstars on the payroll).

Their 30th Anniversary Prop Red Bottling is completely flawless. I’m sure at the time all these reviewers tried the wine a few years ago it was great but not perfect but now I think you’d have a hard time convincing me this thing would get anything less than a 98 or 99. It’s so smooth and memorable– a real treat from a Napa icon.