This is the second ever vintage of our newest Napa project, the 2023 Centum Cabernet! Centum is Latin for 100, and the wine celebrates a selection of 100% Cabernet from the valley’s greatest vineyard sites. The 2023 harvest was spectacular, and we went with a final selection from three legendary Rutherford Bench vineyards - Inglenook, Morisoli, and Bella Oaks.
The Rutherford Bench isn't a marketing term. It's geology made legend. Thousands of years ago, the mountain slopes above what is now Inglenook collapsed, sending waves of gravel and volcanic rock cascading down into the valley floor. The result was a wide, well-drained alluvial fan — deep, gravelly soils that stress the vine just enough to concentrate everything that matters: color, fruit, structure, and that mineral signature that the great André Tchelistcheff called "Rutherford Dust."
Add to that the cooling influence of marine air from the San Pablo Bay, which preserves acidity and balance, and you have a recipe for greatness.
The nose grabs you with dark cherry, blackberry, cedar, and dried herbs. They follow through to the palate along with cassis, cocoa, silky, silky tannins and the most incredible earthiness, and it makes for an incredible -wonderfully long, fragrant finish, with hints of cherry skins, pepper, and dark chocolate along with that exquisite "Rutherford Dust" minerality. It’s a stunning wine right now especially after a couple of hours in the decanter, but there’s no doubt the best is yet to come over the next 20 years!
