Rancho Sarco Vineyard

The boss has been buying grapes from the Rancho Sarco Vineyard, located in the cool Coombsville District just north of the winery about two miles, since 2002. Like Chateau Haut Brion just outside the city of Bordeaux, it is surrounded by housing tracts. And like Chateau Haut Brion, it produces incredible Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Rancho Sarco Vineyard is owned and farmed by the Nord family, with whom the boss has had a relationship for nearly a decade. In the production of fine wines, a strong understanding must exist between grape grower and wine producer.

The 2002 is representative of a cool microclimate Napa Valley Cabernet produced in the Tulocay style: Fully extracted, lean, much like an old-fashioned Médoc, and destined to last decades.

In 2006, the vineyard produced a more atypical, ultra-ripe wine of 15.1% alcohol. Only 225 cases were bottled. It earned a Double Gold Medal in the 2009 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Unfortunately, only 230 cases made.

The Nord family has put up quite a bit of information on the Rancho Sarco Vineyard here.

Cliff Vineyard

Since 1981 Tulocay has offered one Cabernet Sauvignon from a single source, the Cliff Vineyard. It's located a few miles north of the winery in the hills at the end of the Old Soda Springs Road. This puts the vineyard somewhere between the Atlas Peak and Stags Leap viticultural districts.

Our 2002 Cliff Cabernet follows in the same tradition as the vintages preceding it... in other words, full throttle Napa Valley Cabernet.

Some folks like to drink our Cliff Vineyard Cabernet young. Others prefer to lay it down for five, ten or twenty years to let it soften up a bit. Either way, the Cliff is a Napa Cabernet that creates memories.

Della's Vineyard

There's a lot going on here. Most Cabernets bottled these days reach their peak at about six years of age, if not sooner. At eight years of age, the 2002 Della's is just now beginning to show. Age-worthy Napa Valley Cabernet for under $30 a bottle? Who woulda thunk it?