Collectors!!

If you fancy yourself a hillside hunting, double decanting, big-scores-or-bust type; here you go.

Napa Cabernet doesn’t get much better. Double the 95 points, $50 per bottle savings, made by rockstar winemaker(s) from a “lieu-dit” worthy high elevation vineyard. Is your heart beating a little faster yet??

Waypoint takes a similar approach to Bond, Schrader, and Realm - produce singularly kick-ass wines from the best possible fruit sources. They own no vineyard, but they sure do have a line on top-quality locales. The name represents GPS coordinates or a place of origin. Which fits with their mission to highlight single-vineyard, site-specific locations for each wine. They also have a dynamic trio of winemakers: Matt Sands, Maayan Koschitzky, and Phillippe Melka!. Melka has a mountain of 95-100 rated wines, like this one, having starred at Dominus, Hundred Acre, Bryant Family, Dalla Valle, and more.

And the vineyard? A prime site, way above the valley floor. Lowrey is a hillside vineyard between Rutherford and Pritchard Hill. Basalt Ledge is a rocky outcropping within it that actually backs up to Pritchard Hill, home of Colgin, Chappellet, David Arthur, and other top-tier wines…

So, what’s it like? Soft and velvety texture, a bottomless hole of deep, dark fruits such as blackberries, cherries, cassis, plum, and mulberry. It has incredible minerality in the form of pencil shavings, alongside a savory edge, or call it a ledge! The long, seamless finish is pure as 2+2 and complex as Pi. Drank it over the course of 4 days, it held up beautifully, with no signs of breaking down. And it has many years to go.

Very small production and we did our best to get enough. Will you be one of the lucky ones?

95 Points – Antonio Galloni’s Vinous

“The 2018 Lowrey Vineyard - Basalt Ledge is dense, creamy, and expansive. Black cherry, mocha, lavender, spice, and new leather fill out the layers beautifully in this ample, resonant Cabernet Sauvignon from Waypoint. All the elements are so well balanced here. Both Lowrey wines in this lineup emerge from the Upper Range development in the hills above Rutherford. Drink 2025-2038.”

95 Points – Jeb Dunnuck

“The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Lowrey Vineyard Basalt Ledge offers a touch more purity and elegance, with beautiful cassis fruit as well as notes of damp earth, chocolate, and flowers. With a great mid-palate, full-bodied richness, and silky tannins, this beauty has everything you could want from a great Napa Cabernet. It too should keep for 10-15 years, if not longer. Drink 2021-2038”