Hope you had an amazing Labor Day Weekend!

Ready to storm through this short week and start with a BANGER?

Excuse us for not doing this with the #1 Wine of the Year; you’ll have to make do with #2.

“#2 WINE OF THE YEAR, STILL AVAILABLE? WHA? SHIP IT!!!” (Agent Noir’s reaction last week)

AND it’s got FIVE 98 points! At one of the lowest prices ever seen for it?! Is today even real, or did I oversleep after a long weekend? Somebody pinch me!

That glorious Wine Spectator recognition came with this rave explaining why: “Beaulieu Vineyard’s Georges de Latour has a long history, dating to its inaugural vintage of 1936. De Latour himself hired the legendary André Tchelistcheff as winemaker in 1938; Tchelistcheff would go on to steward the bottling for the next 35 years. Select vintages from his tenure across the ‘50s, ’60s, and early ’70s are considered benchmark wines for California Cabernet… Winemaker Trevor Durling was hired in 2017 and hit a high note with this classic-rated 2021 in a superb vintage.”

Food & Wine famously once said, “There are so many Napa Cabernets made today that if you stacked them one by one, they’d reach all the way to the moon. But if you stacked them in order of historical significance with the most profound bottles forming the base, the #1 bottle would have to be BV’s legendary Georges de Latour Private Reserve.”

BV has one of the most storied pedigrees of any Napa winery, stretching back to the 1930s. This flagship has been in production for nearly 100 years! It was the first “cult” wine in Napa (before that was even a thing) and today it still rivals or bests the trendiest of cult Cabs thanks to the peak this pioneer reached in ‘Maestro’ André Tchelistcheff’s able hands. Kudos to Trevor Durling for reviving that legacy.

The sheer complexity will send you reeling. We won’t waste time trying to sashay some more tasting notes into the mix. The pros below do it justice, and it’s something you need to taste to fully appreciate.

For many, this was long sold out… consider us lucky!

98+ Points – Jeb Dunnuck “The flagship 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Georges de Latour Private Reserve is in the same ballpark as the 2019 and is an incredibly elegant yet concentrated 2021 that does everything right. Purple-hued, with ample cassis, wild sage, graphite, and darker chocolate-like aromatics, it picks up a Graves-like gravelly earth character with air and is full-bodied, has ripe, polished tannins, beautiful overall balance, and a great finish. As with many of the top 2021s, it’s a touch reserved and closed and needs 4-5 years of bottle age but will drink well for 30 years. Drink 2027-2057.”

98 Points – Vinous “This is another set of stellar wines from Beaulieu Vineyard and winemaker Trevor Durling. BV is arguably one of the most improved estates in Napa Valley over the last few years. Today’s wines offer terrific energy in a style that marries textural resonances with vibrancy. In short, the wines show more clarity and definition than in the past, which is great to see. The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Georges de Latour is outrageously beautiful. A wine of statuesque build and class, the 2021 represents another major step forward for BV. Black cherry, plum, spice, new leather, menthol, mocha and gravel soar from the glass. This is an especially refined vintage for this flagship wine. Here, too, there is plenty of tannin, but it is not anywhere near as perceptible as it was in the past. Shorter macerations and gentler overall winemaking, including fewer lots vinified in barrel, have elevated the Georges meaningfully. Drink 2027-2041.”

98 Points – The Wine Independent “Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2021 Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is a little restrained to begin, needing a lot of shaking to wake up notes of blackcurrant cordial, plum preserves, and juicy black cherries, opening out to hints of bay leaves, graphite, mossy tree bark, violets, and tilled soil. The full-bodied palate delivers wonderfully fine-grained yet firm tannins and fantastic tension to frame the intense black fruit and minerally layers, finishing long and perfumed. Drink 2027-2058.”

98 Points – Decanter “What a spectacular showing of this iconic wine in the terrific 2021 vintage. Deep ruby with a purple hue, it just exudes elegance and statesmanship. It has a noble quality to it that begins with its precise and lifted bouquet of dried rose petals, kirsch, Blackberry, and cassis fruit interlaced with sagebrush, sandalwood, and toasty cedarwood. Perfectly medium to full-bodied, showcasing a dazzling spectrum of silken red and black fruits redolent of strawberry, cherry, plum, and blackberry atop a substantial bed of taut, mineral-tinged tannins. A spine of racy acidity lifts the panoply of fruit, and the finish reveals a plethora of wild herbs, cast iron notes, pastille, and white pepper, nuanced by rich, toasty oak infused with toffee and vanilla bean. It is one of the most satisfying and immediately enjoyable expressions of the Georges de Latour Private Reserve in the last decade. Produced by Trevor Durling, the fourth winemaker to follow in the footsteps of the great André Tchelistcheff. Drinking window 2024-2050.”

98 Points – James Suckling “Intense aromas of iodine, blackcurrants, cedar, sandalwood and mint follow through to a medium to full body with silky tannins that spread across the palate and expand in a balanced and harmonized way. Hints of chocolate and fruit at the end. Some tar. Drinkable but better in a few years. Try in 2027 and beyond.”