Nellcôte Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Reserve Napa Valley 2021
California · Napa Valley · Cabernet Sauvignon · red
About this wine
96 POINTS! Nellcôte is back – and with winemaker Benoit Toquette at the helm, this is a Napa Valley Tour de Force! Step one…GET THIS! I literally cannot stress this enough, good people. Heck, yeah! I popped a bottle of this over the weekend – and in a line-up of Guado Al Tasso, Pintia Toro, and a cult-y, shall-not-be-named $200+ Napa Cab – this was a favorite! (And the least expensive of the bunch – by quite a ways!) Over $60 OFF and under $90 for a stunning, cult-worthy RESERVE Rutherford Cab?! Well, well, WELL! The Benoit Toquette Effect strikes AGAIN!!! REALM, Teeter-Totter, Fait-Main, and MORE – this man turns Napa Cab into liquid gold like some Dionysian deity. Nellcôte is ascending, friends – and we’ve got it for the BEST PRICE anywhere! Nellcôte is the name of the French Villa where the ROLLING STONES lived, partied, and occasionally worked while cutting their iconic “Exile on Main Street” album. So when I boldly proclaim that this winery – and this stunning new Rutherford Reserve release ROCKS…I mean it in a multitude of ways. The price! The intensity of that luscious Rutherford fruit! The silky, polished, and simply LUXURIOUS bearing…it’s beyond EPIC. Oh yeah – it’s ALL from one single, ICONIC Rutherford vineyard. Now, I’ve been pre-emptively pulled into the drab and soulless office of our in-house legal counsel and told – in no uncertain terms – that I am NOT allowed to use this named, incredibly famous vineyard in any way. I’m not even supposed to allude to it strongly…but life’s just more fun in the grey areas, isn’t it? And so…on a completely unrelated note…who’s seen Hamilton? Man, that ROYAL antagonist in Act I? With that famous line in the musical of \"I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love...\" POWERFUL stuff, right? Welp, so is THIS!!! Other top wineries like Schrader, Myriad Cellars, and Purlieu charge $200++ for cabernet sauvignons from this iconic location, set just west of the Silverado Trail on the eastern edge of Rutherford (and planted nearly 130 years ago by the Rutherford family)! But we’re Last Bottle – so you’ll pay a mere fraction of that today – and score a bottle every bit as delicious! Those classic Rutherford dusty tannins! That bold and silky crème de cassis character! The oodles of blackberries, and currants, with mee-maw’s strawberry jam, smoky black pepper, and this gorgeous note of peonies and red roses…DANG! The Nellcôte team mentioned a bit of rhubarb pie and smoldering sage influence, too…and I’m so on-board with that call it’s almost spooky. Get out of my brain!!! Anywho, this is downright sexy and sultry Napa Cab to the absolute MAX, good people. The simply befuddling greatness of Napa’s 2021 vintage is flexing like some 70s era Schwarzenegger – and I honestly can’t decide to drink this all up right now, ten years from now, or both. Toss in that super-secret LEGENDARY vineyard I absolutely did not and shall not allude to directly. Absolute MADNESS – just like a certain King that lost the colonies. Sorry, must be dusty in here, my left eye keeps blinking twice…weird. Anywho…we grabbed all that we could – and now the chance is yours! Phenomenal winemaker, iconic vineyard, high-scoring, Rutherford Cab goodness – all at a simply UNBEATABLE price! While it lasts!
Wine details
- Producer
- Nellcôte
- Vintage
- 2021
- Region
- California
- Appellation
- Napa Valley
- Varietal
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- Color
- red
- Winemaker
- Benoit Touqette
- Alcohol
- 14.4
- Last Bottle price
- $89
- Retail price (estimate)
- $150
- CellarTracker score
- 92 (3 reviews)
- Critic score
- 96 — Decanter