Wallis Family Estate 2019 Diamond Mountain Cabernet (Napa)

Cabernet fruit from Diamond Mountain is known for being age-worthy, and this one is no exception, needing a bit of time before it is ready to strut its best stuff. That said, the wine is a candidate for "best wine at this price point", delivering on everything one expects from this region - black cherries, a whiff of iodine/steel, tar/black licorice, cigar tobacco and a lilting acidity that lifts the wine above its dark and somber fruit notes and high alcohol, which the wine carries with ease, BTW.

Drink now through 2034. ~600 cases produced.

Though Edward moved to Napa in 1975, for many decades he was content to merely live in the wine country while working in an unrelated field. For a long while, simply being a resident of this head-snappingly beautiful region was sufficient. But eventually the wine bug bit, and he and Marilyn planted Cabernet vines on their 85-acre property in the 1997. At first, their Diamond Mountain location produced fruit that went into the prestige cuvees of Lakoya, Ramey and Duckhorn, and the Wallis's were content to simply sell their fruit. For a while.

In 2006, they decided to begin an estate-driven label, hiring one of Napa's top winemakers to craft wines from their fruit. Thomas Rivers Brown was selected from among the candidates for winemaker. Already a famous name in Napa, he was named Wine Spectator's Winemaker of the Year in 2010, and enjoys several perfect 100-point scores from that publication.

While I'm not a fan of buying wine based on points, but it is nice to know that a wine crafted by such a highly-awarded winemaker is available to everyday collectors for the relatively reasonable price of $100!