You don’t have to pay $500,000 for a wine made by Heidi Peterson Barrett. Today’s wine is a steal, even at full retail price. Fortunately for you and your fellow Operatives, we’re offing today’s treat at a very special price.

Oh, Heidi, how we love your wines! (ahem) Today’s La Sirena Wines 2012 Le Barretage Appellation Calistoga Napa Valley Red Wine is a magnificent and delectable wonder of a wine. This blend of Syrah (95%), Grenache (2.5%) and Petite Sirah is one impressive wine that you’ll want to stock up on.

This wine has excellent color extraction, with an opaque inky purple that runs right to the edge. It has a beautiful clean nose of dark black fruit, cocoa, spice, and cassis. Also to be found are subtle hints of white pepper and cardamom. On the palate red fruit mixes with the black fruit, revealing cherry, pomegranate, and allspice. It drinks very much like the elegant Syrah it is, with the classic white pepper the great Rhone varietal is known for. Beautifully balanced and rich, this wine glides smoothly across the entire palate and fills the mouth as it enters, lingering on the center of the palate, the cheeks, and the throat. Excellent finish. This is a sophisticated wine that can stand up to an equally complex meal. Try French culinary staples such as coq au vin or beef bourguignon.

Heidi Peterson Barrett is one of the world’s most renowned and respected winemakers. Since the 1980s, she has created some of the Napa Valley’s most famous wines, including Screaming Eagle, Dalla Valle, Grace Family, Paradigm, and many others. She started her own brand, La Sirena, in 1994, and began her collaboration brand, Barrett & Barrett, with her husband, Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena, in 2010.

Her career took off in the late 80s when she began working for Dalla Valle as an “independent winemaker”. She began to develop a tiny project called Screaming Eagle shortly afterward, and from there, things escalated quickly. With 5 perfect 100-point scores for her wines in the span of just a few years, Heidi skyrocketed to international fame, setting a world record for the highest price ever paid for a single bottle of wine ($500,000 for a 6L of 1992 Screaming Eagle at the Napa Valley Wine Auction in 2000).

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Here’s what the wine press has to say.

97 Points - Boris Guillome, WSET Advanced - “Illustrious purple and black fruit, roasted coffee bean, spice herbal complexity and cedar. Fantastic mouthfeel, demonstrating poignant with tight knit fruit and tannins. A fun, yet serious wine, that will please the masses and deliver over the holiday season. This delivers supreme quality from a top-notch winemaker at a superb price. Pair with grilled flank steak with roasted fall veggies, red wine braised stew with white bean cassoulet, and grilled lamb sliders with tomato relish.”