100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Food pairings: A well-marbled steak from the grill, rare barbecued beef, braised short ribs, roast lamb and hard cheeses.

Winemaking: The 2022 harvest came in two parts: two days of unseasonal heat around September 5 meant a flurry of picking on the hillside estate blocks, while the valley-floor Cabernet enjoyed another two weeks on the vine for a long, leisurely harvest, giving a brighter, more vibrant blend than the deeper, darker estate bottlings. After a seven-day fermentation the wine went to barrel before malolactic fermentation, keeping it on its lees when young for a rounder, smoother texture, and it was racked four times in its first year to encourage aromatic and tannin development. It was aged for 18 months in a blend of French and American oak barrels. Drink from release through 2029 for youthful fruit and structure, or from 2030 to 2040 for a softer, more developed bouquet.

Vineyards and terroir: About 30% of the wine comes from the family's estate hillside vineyards in the hills east of St. Helena, above Conn Valley near the base of Howell Mountain, where the site is often warmer than the valley floor on summer afternoons. The rest comes from mature, high-quality, low-yielding Napa Valley vineyards on the valley floor some fifteen miles to the south, so the blend shows the broad spectrum of aromas, flavors and textures Cabernet can give in the Napa Valley.

Family and history: Buehler Vineyards is a fourth-generation family vineyard and winery perched on a mountaintop five country miles east of St. Helena. John Buehler Sr., a West Point graduate and Army colonel who later spent two decades at Bechtel, bought the hillside property with his wife Helen in 1971, and the first Buehler wines were released from the 1978 vintage. A young Heidi Barrett was hired as winemaker in 1982 and helped put Buehler on the Napa map. Today John Jr. oversees the winery with his son Jonathan, combining meticulous vineyard management and minimal winemaking to make wines of complexity and depth at fair prices. The label shows the old stone "ghost winery" from around 1880 that still stands at the entrance to the property.