TO KALON SOLD OUT! And so did the entry level blend in the Store.

BUT OUR FIRST TIME EVER CLASSIFIED STORE TAKEOVER CONTINUES! 🕵️‍♂️ NOW DOWN TO 3 WINES.

Operatives, you know the drill. Can’t say much. Just TRUST US. FIVE culty wines today, each one usually locked behind retail auction houses. Wine #2 is also a single vineyard.

This is a CLASSIFIED deal because our business runs on precious, delicate relationships. Naming names would put our livelihood, and a few others, at risk. Some wineries are price sensitive enough that a deal like this would send their mailing list into a frenzy. So today we’re HUSH, HUSH, and will be patrolling the Operative Hangout and social media to scrub any hints you post. We know, it kills some of the fun. Trust us anyway. 🤐 You will not regret it!

Scores? 🎯 Everything this winery does gets HUGE scores… HINT…All 97 and up to 99 (4 of them)

And our cryptic collaboration of critics reviews….”Killer aromatics of blackcurrants, blueberries..”, ”big, bold layered and structure…balanced”, ”soars from the glass”, ”captivating”, ”polished”, ”long lived..”

And the 2023 Napa vintage? Critics, winemakers and growers called it A once in a lifetime vintage. Brilliant. Aromatic and Fully ripe. James Suckling titled his report Napa’s Gorgeous Red Tide: 2023 Vintage Is a Legend in the Making.

The intel we can leak: the letters A and E show up in the name. Hangman peeps?!??.. go nuts. 🧩

Here’s what we can say. This producer’s fingerprints are all over some of Napa’s most fought over single vineyard sites, and the winemaker leaned on a mentor for blending, one who shaped some of Napa’s most legendary Cabs across a five decade, four continent career. (Many 100 pointers)

The fruit comes from one of Napa’s most exclusive mountain enclaves, a single vineyard estate: Houyi Vineyard, Pritchard Hill. “For readers who don’t know Houyi, its neighbors are Colgin, David Arthur and Brand,” explains Vinous. Just over 20 acres, sited above the fog line, Houyi fruit has long been prized by names like Thomas Rivers Brown, Russell Bevan and Benoit Touquette, just to name a few of this elite club.

Deals like today take delicate negotiation. Months went into hammering out the details, our agents tapping their feet the whole time, eyeing the sample bottle and forced to pass it by again and again. OP’s you have no idea how hard that is!! But it paid off…and as a reminder…MUMMS the word!

Medium to full bodied. dense but not heavy, structured. Brambly blackberry and damson plum lead, with lightly crushed espresso bean, black licorice and a baking spice underneath. Give it air and iron filings and wet slate break through the dark berry fruit, before a long finish that keeps climbing. Chalky, grippy tannins hold it all together. Built to age a decade, already drinking beautifully.

🚨 More to come. The full takeover is live in store. Operatives who stop here will regret it.