“…a wonderfully vivid, layered, balanced Cabernet…” – Decanter

With 95 Points freshly minted and about to be published soon! A favorite returns for one last hurrah, so get it while you can. Also, not to brag, but WE TOLD YOU!

Operative Anton K. has been right, he has, “yet to taste a better QPR @$49.”

No doubt, we are in the presence of an uncommon steal that brings a very real $175 release price. Now, public math isn’t my forte, but Claude tells me that’s at least $125 less and “solid math on paper.”

Seiler Estate is a rare gem in the world of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Still family owned and operated, small batch and highly sought after. Lewis David Seiler bought a small vineyard perched on Glass Mountain in St. Helena.

His neighbors? Amulet Estate, Merus, Failla, Hundred Acre…. supplying some of Napa’s best with fruit while continuing to focus on his art career. A very successful art career, mind you. As a sculptor, photographer, and environmental benefactor, his work has been highlighted at the Museum of Modern Art, Tiffany, Cartier, and the Vorpal Gallery.

And that’s how he connected with 4th Generation Napa winemaker and Denis Malbec protégé Mario Sculatti, of ROAM and Kanamota (a few very loyal Ops will remember that one) and also the VAULT in Calisota, where they collect art and artifacts while pouring some great wines. Mario has a knack for making some well-balanced and richly textured wines. Oh, and pampering these grapes is no ordinary viticulturalist; Francisco Alfaro has an illustrious past growing grapes that supplied the likes of Harlan Estate, Araujo, Ovid, Arrow & Branch, and Drinkward Peschon.

Enough name-dropping, though. What’s inside this glorious bottle? With some airtime, it starts to unravel like my 6-year-old son’s lies about the candy hidden in his room. With flavor piled just as high. Heaps of black fruit, mocha, truffle dust, sweet/candied walnut, and glorious nuances of slate and minerals from the obsidian-packed volcanic soils. Blackcurrant and dusty blackberries galore and just good ol’ PROPER Napa Cab, I tell ya! Decant it and enjoy now, but it’s still young, and a few years to a decade will do wonders to this one.

Just around 400 cases made each vintage, and with the small portions we fight for these go fast!

95 Points – Decanter “This Reserve is crafted by Mario Sculatti, and is a wonderfully vivid, layered, balanced Cabernet, with freshness, energy and good tension through a host of blackberry fruit, with graphite and wild herb notes, framed by fine-grained tannins and finishing with chalky minerality and dark chocolate notes. Drink 2026-2056.”