Quilt Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2017

Fifth generation Californian winemaker, Joe Wagner has it pretty good. His family has built an empire in American wine. Caymus, the flagship brand is nothing short of a Napa Valley cult. And that’s just one brand out of dozens that the Wagner family has built from the ground up into something huge. With their feet firmly entrenched in the soil and the fabric of California winemaking, perhaps there’s no more fitting brand name for the Wagner family, than one of their more recent projects, Quilt.

With their access to an abundance of the best vineyards in the most choice AVAs in the valley, the Wagner’s set out to make Quilt– a Cabernet blend from a patchwork of the top sites in Napa (Oakville, St. Helena, Coombsville, Atlas Peak, Calistoga and Howell Mountain).

The ‘Reserve’ is a fairly rare bottling that the Wagners decided to unleash in a similar fashion as their Caymus ‘Special Selection’. The family constantly evaluates all their barrels throughout the fermentation and aging processes, then sets aside the best 2% for this reserve bottling. The criteria for the Reserve is based around intensity, complexity and boldness of expression that could withstand a longer aging cycle and heavier use of new French Oak.

Unsurprisingly, this is a few steps up from the regular Quilt Cabernet bottling. It’s a deep, dark Cabernet with lots of black fruits and spices and a ton of powerful energy that radiates throughout the wine. It’s a very age-worthy bottling, especially in Napa’s 2017 vintage – a vintage that most agree has only gotten better and better. Of course, for something this special, it’s also linked to a big score – a 96 pointer from The Tasting Panel who noted the leap in quality between this and the regular AVA Cabernet bottling. I happened to have the best price in the country on this gem!