Greetings Operative, and welcome to the Wine Spies 2017 Wine Intrigue Awards. Today, we’re featuring Agent Cru’s *Top Selection of 2017, the incredible Godspeed Vineyards 2010 Mt. Veeder Napa Valley Cabernet. This wine was his favorite wine of all of 2017. The rest of us loved it, too! This is your last chance to grab this wine. ______

By now you know how fabulous the 2010 vintage was in the Napa Valley. Wine Spectator’s James Laube awarded this mystical vintage a decade-high 99 points.

Wines from the 2010 Napa Cabernet Vintage are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Wines as good as today’s Godspeed Vineyards 2010 Mt. Veeder Napa Valley Cabernet are nearly impossible to find.

This 2010 Napa Cabernet has a beautiful nose, with rich aromas of black cherry, blueberry, blackberry, hard leather, spice box, subtle tobacco leaf, and flinty mineral.

Incredibly elegant and delicious! Flavors pour onto the palate, with black cherry juice, blackberry, plum, bramble, dried fall leaves, cocoa nib, toasty cedar, vanilla, subtle spice, cured beef and a hint of pencil shavings.

Godspeed is a craft grower in the much lauded Mount Veeder Appellation of the Napa Valley. Most of their fruit is sold to other wineries that make wines from their gorgeous fruit. Sbragia Family Vineyards makes a fantastic $95 Cab from Godspeed grapes.

Winemaker Ed Sbragia (who is also Winemaker Emeritus for Beringer) said, “It’s no secret that we love mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and year after year the fruit from Mt. Veeder’s Godspeed Vineyard justifies my passion. There’s an intensity and concentration to the grapes that practically jumps out of the crusher, and with careful handling this intensity translates to a wine of enormous depth and richness.”

The Godspeed vineyard is the project of Larry Stricker and family. The vineyard sits atop Mt. Veeder, At 1,500 feet elevation. This picturesque vineyard is an exemplary place for growing classic Napa Valley mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. The vineyard, which was planted in 1987, is planted on a collection of steep hillsides with volcanic soils. The Cabernet Sauvignon vines that snake across the hillside slopes produce small clusters of deeply concentrated grapes.

This wine, which was built to age another several years, is drinking beautifully at the moment. Remember, 2010 Napa Cabs are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Ones this good are downright hard.

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Here’s what the wine press has to say:

Steve Heimoff, Wine Enthusiast - “Plenty of ripe black currant, licorice and cedar flavors in this dry, full-bodied young Cabernet. It feels luxurious in the mouth, with a depth and spicy finish that are notable. Drink by 2017.”