Dick Vermeil's Napa Valley Cab awarded Best of Class in S.F. Wine Competition

[Auggie]

San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, 2015

Category: Cabernet Sauvignon, $60+

Best of Class: 2012 Calistoga-Napa Valley Pickett Road Block Cabernet Sauvignon.

Retail $125.00

This is a crowded and very competitive category in which to compete.

Vermeil grew up in Napa Valley.

Posted for all you 1%ers out there (also because it seems like a slow news day).

[madinmaryland]

1. I haven't been to a winery in several years. It's always fun to taste different local brands.

The last one I went to was in Northern Virginia. The only thing that sucked was you have an hour ride home, so you can really only do tastings, and then buy a couple bottles to take home.

[Brother Buzz]

2. Cool, wine appreciation is now a sport!

That being said, you have to clinically brain dead to not be able to make a fine Cabernet Sauvignon from grapes grown in the valley between Saint Helena and Calistoga, the epicenter of the finest cabs made in California.

[Auggie]

3. That's pretty much the case, though the true epicenter is Oakville / Rutherford

It's when when you get into thinning for smaller clusters and leaves (some growers will do it 20 times in one season), night harvesting, smaller lugs, hand sorting, sustainable viticulture, gravity flow, French oak barrels, etc. that you start reaching a higher stratosphere in price and quality (all that shit adds money in production). I don't know what they do for Vermeil's award-winner except that it's site specific (he has a terroir story) and small in production (he has a rarity story), and he has a superstar winemaker (Thomas Rivers Brown). Plus Vermeil is a famous dude, so that probably added another $40.00 to the bottle price.