Vineyard 7 & 8 Block Six Red Wine Spring Mountain 2021

The wines from the Vineyard 7 & 8 estate high up on Spring Mountain are some of the most expressive and penetrating wines from mountain properties in Napa Valley.  The winemaking team meticulously crafts these wines from vineyard to bottle, sparing no expense in making the absolute best wine imaginable.  From hand-picking in the cool of night to double hand-sorting to ensure the absolute best quality of fruit to fermentation in small new French oak barriques (very rare) and extended macerations, these wines genuinely express an unmistakable sense of place crafted by one of the most skilled winemaking teams Napa has to offer.  So when they poured the ACME team a taste of their proprietary blend, we all closed our eyes, took a sip, and basked in the pure joy of this Spring Mountain gem.

Established as an AVA (American Viticulture Area) in 1993, Spring Mountain was described 25 years ago by a prominent wine writer as “probably more responsible than any other Napa hillside for creating the mystique of mountain grapes.” Due to the rough and varied terrain, vineyards are small and planted to a patchwork of microclimates and soils.  Cooler than the valley below (sometimes as much as ten degrees), this results in a more extended growing season, with the forbidding soils acting as natural crop thinners.  They are known for producing wines with an unmistakable intense flavor yet delicate, balanced tannins that are now the signature of Spring Mountain wines.  

In 1999, Wesley Steffens’ family bought a 40-acre property with just a few acres of established vineyards (planted by Ric Forman and David Abreu).   Wesley spent several years working harvests at Harlan and BOND and worked as the cellar master before leaving to focus solely on his family’s winery.  What makes Vineyard 7 & 8 top of the game to us is that their wines embody all of the typical Spring Mountain characteristics-power, structure, and greatness with the mark of a Napa Valley winemaking legend: Martha McClellan (Levy & McClellan, Checkerboard, Sloan) along with Wesley helping out in the cellar as Associate Winemaker.  The idea spark for this blend came back in 2014 when the vineyard team planted Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot for the first time, along with new Cabernet Sauvignon, to the steepest slopes on the property.  The wine earned its name from the vines, as the block where they are all planted is “Block Six.”