Robb Report’s Napa Valley Wine Club Is Shipping 3 Stellar Cabernet Sauvignons Next Month
There’s definitely a hum of excitement among the members of Robb Report 672 Napa Valley Wine Club as they get the message that their final quarterly shipment of 2024 is on the way. The only wine club that offers exclusively red wine solely from Napa Valley, 672 Wine Club provides members hard-to-source wine from small family producers, many of which fly under the radar. Although every quarter is a discovery for members as they open bottles that may have been until that moment a well-kept wine world secret, the box going out right now features three Cabernet Sauvignons, two from well-known producers and the third from a historic vineyard.
Consisting of two bottles each of Tor 2021 Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon, Lail Vineyards 2022 Blueprint Cabernet Sauvignon, and Vine Cliff 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon, bottles from the exclusive club are on their way to members’ homes, and fortunately there are still a few membership slots available. While the first two wines are practically household names among in-the-know Napa lovers, Vine Cliff is still a bit off the beaten path despite its prominent location. A historic vineyard site dating back to 1871, Vine Cliff is “hidden in plain sight,” according to estate director and general manager Bryan Zupon. “Countless visitors to the Napa Valley pass the Oakville sign as they drive up Silverado Trail. Crane your head up, and there are those historic terraced vineyard blocks where this wine is grown,” Zupon says.
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Club director Dave Shefferman wasn’t planning on featuring bottles with such a high profile, but after a rigorous selection process he and his team hit on a perfect combination. The exciting thing about the club is that Shefferman parlays his experience and contacts to curate quarterly shipments from some of the best producers in the valley. Unlike many impossible-to-access Napa cult wines, bottles from 672 Wine Club are available to those who join and are also extremely well priced. Quarterly shipments of two bottles each of three different wines—for a total of six bottles every three months—are priced at between $550 and $650, with shipping included, for an average price of $100 per bottle. “It’salways going to be a mixed bag, but we are always focused on small, family-owned producers,” Shefferman says. “For some, the wineries we feature may be well known, for others, they’re all new. None produce more than 5,000 or 6,000 cases per year, so they are not ‘large’ by any measure,” he continues, and jokes, “Gallo probably spills more in a day than any of these producers bottle in a year.”
While many of the club bottles received in the last couple of years have been from winemakers that are so small they sell to their own cult followings without any press or fanfare from critics, this season is decidedly different. “The producers in this round may have made more critically acclaimed wines than producers we’ve featured in the past,” Shefferman says. The advantage of receiving two bottles of each wine is that you can drink one now and cellar the other to allow it to age. The club is limited to 672 members, which is the number of bottles a standard shipping palette holds, allowing the Robb Report team and their partner, WineSavage, which is run by Shefferman, to source rare and highly allocated lots that would be unavailable to a larger group. Additional bottles may be available for purchase by members only on the club’s website while stock lasts.
The club is in a constant state of curation, with members of the team individually sampling hundreds of wines and inviting potential contenders to submit their wines to the tasting panel. The group gets together regularly to blind taste these submissions to cherry pick the standouts, trying between 80 and 100 wines per quarter. The samples of the standouts from the blind tastings are then sent to us to confirm that they truly deserve best of the best status or should be removed from consideration. The wines that make it through that selection process are then considered for a shipment. (Full disclosure, we also write the tasting cards and producer profiles that are included with each shipment, but we do not receive any additional compensation from the wine club.) Here’s what you can look forward to with the current selections.
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Lail Vineyards 2022 Blueprint Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
Sourced from vineyards in Calistoga, Rutherford, Coombsville, Howell Mountain, Stags Leap District, Yountville, and Oakville, only 2,586 cases were made of this stunning Cabernet Sauvignon. From a warm and dry season that offered perfect ripening conditions, it spent 17 months in 65 percent new French oak barrels under the watchful eyes of superstar winemakers Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky. The color of freshly picked blueberries, it has enticing aromas of blueberry, cassis, eucalyptus, and lavender in the complex bouquet. Flavors of blackberry confit, blueberry pie, baking spice, and dark chocolate are shrouded in pleasantly grippy tannins. Gorgeous acidity adds a surprising burst of brightness in the otherwise smooth finish.
Tor Wines 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Napa Valley
Tor Wines has been a Napa Valley mainstay since its founding by vintner and proprietor Tor Kenward in 2001. Winemaker Jeff Ames leans into making big, bold unfiltered wines with rich fruit, elegant tannins, and plush flavors. Crafted with grapes from three exceptional vineyards in Oakville that boast neighbors such as Screaming Eagle and Dalle Valle, this Cabernet was made in an extremely limited edition of only 85 cases. Twenty months in oak added beautiful tannic structure to a core of dense fruit. Deep ruby in the glass, it features a bouquet of cherry vanilla, black plum, and crumbled sage leaf. It has luscious, plush tannins and flavors of milk chocolate, mocha, cherry, red plum, and brown baking spices. The finish is smooth and goes on for days.
Vine Cliff Winery 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
From the Vine Cliff Estate Vineyard, this wine was made by Rob Sweeney, who first came to Napa Valley in 1986, the year that his family purchased land in Oakville that included a “ghost winery” abandoned in the early 1900s. After fermentation, the wine rested in 50 percent new French oak barrels for 20 months before bottling and release. Deep violet-red in the glass this 96 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 4 percent Malbec wine has indulgent aromas of cherry vanilla, red plum, and a whiff of new car leather. Flavors of blackberry, black currant, vanilla, milk chocolate, cocoa powder, and anisette are enlivened by a closing splash of bright raspberry. Silky tannins wind down to a satisfying finish with a lingering note of crushed fennel seed. Only 300 were cases made.
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