100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Food pairings: Prime steak, braised short ribs, roast lamb, grilled meats and aged cheeses.

Winemaking: This is Covert's "black label" Cabernet, built on the dark, structured aromatics of Coombsville. The grapes are picked by hand in the cool early morning and sorted twice, first as whole clusters and then again as destemmed berries. After a cold maceration the fruit ferments with naturally occurring wild yeasts for three to four weeks, then is pressed gently in a vertical press directly into barrels for malolactic fermentation. The wine ages 18 to 26 months in new French oak, as each vintage needs, is racked no more than twice a year, and is bottled without fining or filtration.

Vineyards and terroir: Coombsville, in the cooler southeastern corner of the Napa Valley, gives Cabernet a long hang time and fresh, dark-fruited intensity. For the 2021 the grapes came from Coombsville's Langley Park Vineyard and Papa's Vineyard. The 2021 growing season was calm and dry, and the drought conditions gave a small crop of tiny, intensely flavored berries.

Family and history: Covert Estate, on Chateau Lane in Coombsville, combines traditional Bordeaux winemaking with Californian creativity and farms its estate vineyard organically. Winemaker Julien Fayard was born in France and worked at Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Smith Haut Lafitte before moving to the Napa Valley, where he has made wine for more than two decades. As he says of the vintage, "The 2021s have wonderful intensity, and a dynamism that really sets them apart."

In the pictures: Walking the vineyard rows at Covert Estate in Coombsville; and punching down the cap of fermenting Cabernet in the Covert cellar (both courtesy of Covert Estate).