“I have yet to taste a better QPR @$49.” - Anton K.

Oh, Anton, how right you are. On this quiet Friday morning, where half the Agents have just migrated to BottleRock for the long weekend, I pulled a bottle and can confirm with this new vintage: we are in the presence of EXTREME QPR.

This reserve bottling brings a very real $175 release price, and while the producer’s website still has a “coming soon” on it, we’re dropping it today for under $50. Now, public math isn’t my forte, but Claude tells me that’s at least $125 less and “solid math on paper.”

So, a worldwide exclusive, first-to-market score for a wild discount. And speaking of scores, while this isn’t yet rated, the previous releases earned 94-96 points from the critics. While this is yet to be scored, my money says it lands in the 96+ range - especially given it hails from the mythical and awe-inspiring 2023 vintage. At the very least, it’s what previous releases offered, “bold and powerful… exceptional Cabernet Sauvignon” (IWR) with “complexity and finesse… beautifully balanced” (JD) that’s evidently “well made from start to finish” as we now expect from every one of these!

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.

Proprietor, Lewis David Seiler bought a small vineyard on Glass Mountain in St. Helena. His neighbors? Amulet Estate, Merus, Failla, and Hundred Acre. He’s been 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 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. 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.

I don’t need a crystal ball to foresee a future filled with many bottleshots of this all over the Operative Hangout, with captions like “oof, should have bought more” and glowing praise. If you don’t move quick to lock in your share, well, to quote BottleRock 2026 headliner (and Agent Crush fave Backstreet Boys) “show me the meaning of being lonely…”

Just around 400 cases made each year, and the small portion we fought for will go fast!