CLASSIFIED STORE TAKEOVER!! 🕵️‍♂️ FIRST TIME EVER!! FIVE JAW-DROPPING WINES.

Operatives, TRUST YOUR FAITHFUL AGENTS OF WINE. My hands are sweaty as I type this. The risk of ANY exposure of the producer puts our livelihood at stake. Because this is, without a doubt, the best Classified we’ve had. Wait… classified(s) - plural.

Ever.

It’s not up for debate. Is one the best? You can take Larry Bird, the Michael Jordan, and Tom Brady as your GOAT? They’re all legendary.

A producer any collector knows, yearns for, and fawns over when spotted. Scores that refuse to quit. And the kicker: we have FIVE of these bad boys lined up today. Every one an absolute stunner, the kind of CULTY wine usually only available through retail auction houses.

Our business is built on precious and delicate relationships. This is not one we can even whisper a hint via DM or text message or smoke signal…

Speculation abounds in the Operative Hangout looking for clues. Be warned, however: this time, we’ll be trolling the Operative Hangout and, in a rare move, removing any blatant giveaways. Mark Stephens’ phone number will be put on “do not disturb” and ignored for the next 24 hours. It’s that serious.

We know… it takes some of the fun out of it. BUT Trust Us, 🤐 none of that will matter when you open your lockers.

Capiche? Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s get into it.

Scores??🎯This one has many and always crushes it as the flagship press darling in the lineup. 100 Pointer Alert, backed up with high 99, 98, 98…. With AI being so good at finding things nowadays, here’s our sneaky mashup of excerpts…

”Deep garnet, purple…powerful…gorgeous”, “…beautifully built, fragrant…”, “captivating, …monumental To Kalon.” 🍷

And… the 2023 Napa vintage across the board… critics, winemakers, and growers alike called it a once-in-a-lifetime vintage! or Brilliant: Aromatic with fully ripe fruit! The James Suckling report titled Napa’s Gorgeous Red Tide: 2023 Vintage Is a Legend in the Making specifically calls out “To Kalon as central to the vintage’s story.”

The intel we can leak: the letters A & E show up in the name. Hangman puzzle peeps??🧩. go nuts!

We can tell you this producer’s fingerprints are all over some of Napa’s most fought-over single vineyard sites, and the winemaker leaned on a mentor for blending, one who shaped some of Napa’s most legendary Cabs, all while running a five-decade career that stretched across four continents.

Our take… Cassis, dark violet, and blackberry up front, backed by cloves, licorice, and a whisper of lavender. Chinese five spice and warm dusty soil creep in next, layered with graphite, tobacco leaf, and a savory garrigue edge. Full-bodied and richly structured with layers upon layers of dark berries. The tannins stay elegant rather than heavy, fine-grained and polished, with real freshness underneath all that density. LONG FINISH and Ops, this wine is built to last decades!

Ops, if you want to enjoy this when you get it, decant it! We hope you grabbed more than one bottle… so you can give it 4 to 6 years of quiet before you even think about pulling a cork, then sit back and enjoy the next 30 years after that. We are talking about a MASSIVE drinking window that runs past 2045. If that number didn’t just make you sit up straight, read it again.

You made it this far? Patience pays off. While we can’t tell you this wine’s name, we will say this. At our first-ever Wine Spies annual retreat in Calistoga last weekend, among a lineup of dead soldiers including rockstars like Pym-Rae, La Gaffelière, and Archival, this was the unanimous, undisputed victor.

🚨Got some? Good. One down, four to go.

The full takeover is live in store. Stake your claim.