Wines with a story to tell... 2019 Au Revoir Cabernet Sauvignon

2019 Au Revoir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

When you begin to explore small production wines of high quality you quickly
discover that most come with a story. These tales can sound repetitive (for
instance, the natural progression of a winemaker toward access to better fruit as
he or she matures or grows in reputation) or they can sound quite unique. The
bottling below is an example of the later.

That wine, from Napa Valley’s Mount Veeder, is 2019 Au Revoir Cabernet
Sauvignon. 190 cases were produced and 2019 is a great year on Mount Veeder,
as it was in all 16 of Napa’s appellations.

The story begins with the purchase IN 2015 of a legendary Calistoga appellation
Petite Syrah vineyard called Palisades. Planted originally in the 19th century this
property was regarded as one of the World’s best locations for the grape when I
first encountered a taste in the 1970s. It already had a complex history. During
prohibition, the owner was arrested for bootlegging whiskey he made on the
premises. He lost his license to produce and sell wine, so he sold grapes to
others. Eventually the vineyard moved to other hands.
 

By 2015, most of Napa’s best Petite Sirah vineyards had been replanted to more
profitable grape varieties (in other words Cabernet Sauvignon). This vineyard was
an exception. Over the decades, Palisades grapes had been bottled by the
property’s owners at times, but mostly the grapes were marketed to others, as was
the case in 2015. The brand new owners inherited six customers for their available
grapes. All were wineries who sold exclusively direct to consumers. Wine stores
no longer could feature the wine. By this point the marketplace at large had almost
entirely forgotten the existence of this property.
 

Palisades’ new owners proudly intended to make wine from their own grapes - in a
winery to be called Palisades Canyon. They had at the time befriended the owner
of a Mount Veeder Cabernet vineyard. This gentleman had planted his land back
in the days when I was young and, unsurprisingly, he was ready to retire.
Ultimately, his new friends purchased the Mount Veeder property, leaving him free
to retire and they with a replanting job to bring the vineyard up to modern
standards of efficiently.
 

The grapes for the last Mount Veeder vintage were ultimately offered for sale and
deals made to allocate the crop. Then came the great 2019 harvest. The grapes
passing through their hands were to too good to be true, so the new owners
managed to hold onto enough fruit to make 8 barrels at their new wine facility,
resulting in a production of 190 cases. This they called Au Revoir, for obvious
reasons. The now replanted vineyard will not produce fruit for a while and the
Mount Veeder winery name will come later, so Au Revoir is a one-time bottling.

When we got our hands on a bottle we were stunned. We have a staff tasting
panel and our staff, four or five members at that moment, gave the wine a 99 point
score. A typical panel reaction to wines at vastly higher price. Au Revoir, which
drinks beautifully at the moment, is likely to reward the patient... in about five
years. I hope I still have a bottle then.