Vine Hill Ranch Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville 2023

Tucked along the gravelly hillsides of the Mayacamas in Oakville, Vine Hill Ranch is one of those vineyards that seems to have a gravitational pull for some of Napa's most serious Cabernet producers.  The fruit is unmistakable: intensely concentrated, deeply expressive, and somehow both powerful and remarkably graceful.

The ladies of ACME are no strangers to VHR, but we are delightfully blown away every time we taste a new vintage.  Third-generation proprietors Bruce and Heather Phillips expanded their family's generations-long tradition as growers when they launched their own estate wines in 2008.  They brought in winemaker Françoise Peschon, whose résumé includes Araujo Estate, Cornell Vineyards, Accendo Cellars, and Drinkward Peschon, and who has led VHR since day one.

The result?  Well… quite a few 100-point scores later, it's safe to say the Phillips family has managed to turn one of Napa's most coveted vineyards into a cult Cabernet of its own.

And now the 2023 has joined the club.

Jeb Dunnuck awarded the 2023 Vine Hill Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon 100 points, calling it a "perfect wine" and praising its cassis, graphite, smoky tobacco, and spicy wood aromatics. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, with ultra-pure fruit, a seamless profile, fine tannins, and remarkable balance.  Jeb calls it a wine with tremendous class and depth, suggesting it will need another 5–7 years in bottle before really hitting its stride, with a drinking window extending through 2055.

In other words: this is VHR doing exactly what VHR does best.  Deep, powerful, impeccably structured Cabernet with the concentration to age for decades, but enough freshness and finesse to keep all that muscle in check.