99% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Petit Verdot

Food pairings: Grilled ribeye or dry-aged steak, braised short ribs, roast leg of lamb and other richly flavored meat dishes.

Winemaking: The Cabernet Sauvignon was hand harvested on September 10, 2022, just as the Labor Day heat wave set in, and blended with 1% Petit Verdot picked two days later. It was fermented by wild, native yeasts in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks, went through malolactic fermentation in barrel, and was aged 18 months in French oak, 30% new, before being bottled unfined on April 29, 2024.

Vineyards and terroir: The wine comes from a favored two-acre block of the Brothers Vineyard, at the top of the hill on the Snowden ranch, on the eastern slope of Napa Valley in the Vaca Mountains between St. Helena and Rutherford, at about 800 to 850 feet. The soils are a remarkably uniform volcanic rhyolite, and the vineyard was replanted in 2011 to Cabernet Sauvignon clones 337, 191 and 169. Off the valley floor, the vines enjoy evening cooling and afternoon breezes that lengthen the ripening season.

Family and history: Wine grapes have grown on the Snowden ranch since 1878, when Levi and Lucretia Davis homesteaded the land. Wayne and Virginia Snowden bought the property in 1955 and planted Cabernet Sauvignon in the early 1960s; their sons Scott and Randy replanted the ranch in 1981 and launched the family label in 1993. Third-generation Diana Snowden Seysses, also oenologist at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy, has made the wines since 2005.

In the pictures: Winemaker Diana Snowden Seysses; the Brothers Vineyard at the top of the Snowden ranch; and the Brothers Vineyard in autumn colors (photos courtesy of Snowden Vineyards).