“‘Stone the Crows’ Three Twins Vineyard Cabernet is one of the most distinctive wines in Napa Valley.” - Vinous

Stone the Crows burst onto the scene a few years ago to HUGE acclaim. If you were lucky, you scored some of the few bottles we landed a year ago during a Cellar Stocker. Today we’re back with more than a few bottles, but not nearly enough cases of this award-winning blockbuster 98 POINT Cab.

Vinous elaborates, “This small hillside site in Conn Valley was originally developed by the Harlan team and remains meticulously farmed today. Thomas Rivers Brown makes the wines for proprietor Rick Talmadge.”

The vineyard is just up the road from Bond Melbury ($850+ per bottle!), originally planted by the same team. AND you read that name right – TRB, father to more 100 Point wines than one could count. It usually it runs you $150, a comparative bargain. This near-perfect Cab serves up “a commanding yet refined mountain Cabernet with the structure to age beautifully.”

The name “Stone the Crows” comes from British slang for surprise or disbelief. Our price of $79 surely fits the expression.

All but impossible to find outside the mailing list, and NEVER seen at this price. What little we landed of this fantastic vintage will sell out in a flash.

With TRB at the helm, there’s no doubt this is the real deal. It sits alongside a group of coveted projects in his portfolio, including Outpost, Maybach, Schrader and his own Rivers-Marie.

Brown has been hailed as, “the most successful winemaker in California” and has the “Midas touch” according to the pros. He only works with the best vineyards, case in point - Three Twins Vineyard which was planted by Mary Hall for Harlan’s The Napa Valley Reserve.

That land is key to this wine’s immense profile. Crows owner Rick Talmadge bought the 4.5-acre vineyard, and now he’s doing it justice. He recruited Jason Ray as the vineyard manager. Ray oversees some of the most important acres for labels including a few other TRB-made ones like The Grade and Strala.

This has the hallmarks of an upper deck Napa Cab. Toasty richness, dense fruit, layers of complexity and a sturdy backbone. Explosive layers of pomegranate molasses, blackberry jam and toasty sugared walnuts kick things off. Mexican chocolate? Cedar? Cardamom? All in there. Wrap it up with velvety soft tannins from that expensive French Darnajou oak, and you’ve got the trappings of a ‘cult’ Cab.

Only today, at a bargain price!

98 points - Decanter “From the Three Twins Vineyard, a fantastic hillside site about a mile uphill from the BOND Melbury property. Full-bodied, supple, and decadent with an almost Right Bank-like burst of red and black cherries complemented by sagebrush and ironstone minerals. The wine has impressive depth and richness, showing blackberry liqueur-like flavours nuanced by expressive cedarwood. Super-refined tannins usher the wine to a long and graceful finish. Founding winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown fermented grapes in stainless tanks and left them 14-16 days on the skins, with a few days of cold soaking and pump-overs twice daily. Aged 20 months in 80% new Darnajou, Remond, and La Grange barrels and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Drink 2024-2040.”