Trailside Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 2022

Trailside is the brainchild of wine industry leaders and friends, Master Sommelier Carlton McCoy Jr. and Winemaker Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac. They brought great minds together to craft a single-vineyard Rutherford Cabernet from one of Napa's treasured, historic vineyards. Trailside honors the style of winemaking from the 1960s and 1970s that helped put our tiny valley on the map in the greater fine wine world, and these Cabernets are Carlton and Jeremy's personal favorites. The mission was simple for each: "make wines you will enjoy drinking, in a style that you love."

Before it was Trailside Vineyard, this storied plot was called Wildwood Ranch and provided fruit to some of Napa's founding wineries like Sterling, Beaulieu Vineyard, Spring Mountain, and Heitz Cellars. In 1984, Joe Heitz's vineyard manager and friend, Jack Neal, shared with him that Wildwood parcels would soon be on the market as the owners needed to sell for cash. Joe had long admired the vineyard and jumped at the chance, purchasing his first plot of Trailside and cementing the vineyard's place in the Heitz Cellar lineup as a predominant source. The 85-acre vineyard lies on the eastern side of Rutherford at the intersection of the Silverado Trail and Conn Creek Road. Carlton and Jeremy have identified seven micro-climates and eight different soil types within the parcel, and Trailside is a blend of these seven individual sites.

Jeremy masterfully applies his personal winemaking style, which is influenced heavily by the traditions of his family's Burgundian legacy winery, to the individualistic needs of Trailside's seven blocks. Since Trailside as a brand is meant to showcase the preeminence of this historic vineyard, Jeremy tweaks and adapts techniques, beginning with farming practices and extending to fermentation, so that each block receives the curated, personalized attention that will bring out the best in the vines. Blocks begin fermentation with the pied de cuve method, which involves harvesting a small portion of grapes ahead of time, crushing them, and allowing them to ferment spontaneously. Think of it like a sourdough starter that is added to the main lot of grapes to kick-start fermentation. Additionally, Jeremy incorporated whole clusters and submerged caps throughout fermentation (a nod to Dujac's style) despite the uncommon use in Napa. The seven blocks aged in varying-sized vessels, from French oak barrels to 2,000L foudres, had an overall percentage of new oak at 80%.

Their 2022 debut wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and highlights the full spectrum of Cab's aromatic profile with high-toned red and black fruits like strawberry and plum and sturdy, underpinning wafts of cocoa powder and cedar. Poignant acidity lifts the rich, velvety mid-palate upheld by tightly woven, fine-grained tannin. Like the Cabernets of the '60s and '70s, the 2022 features lower alcohol and bright acidity that will carry the wine for decades to come and allow for a seamless and enticing evolution.