AXR Proprietary Red Napa Valley 2021
Proprietary Blends | US
94 points! As James Suckling incisively put it: “Medium-bodied with firm, racy tannins and excellent length. There’s an energy and focused directness with lovely length.” What a striking Cab-led blend from 100 point winemaking legend-in-the-making Jean Hoefliger! If you like ‘em deep and mesmerizing, you need this.
AXR’s 2021 Proprietary Red could technically be called a Cab, since it’s 75% Cabernet Sauvignon rounded out with 15% Malbec, 7% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot. But we like that it’s positioned as a blend, because it invites us into the fabulous MOOD of this wine. Set yourself and your sweetheart up with a cheese plate between you, and a couple great books – which you’ll pull yourself out of every ten minutes to talk about how good the wine is.
Hoefliger is working masterfully with fruit from Oak Knoll, Yountville, and Coombsville. This has the racy, peppery personality of a Left Bank Bordeaux. Medium-weight, tightly layered and loooong, with juicy blueberries, blackberries, and ripe plums. There’s wet stone, cool graphite, and dried herbes de Provence to tense it up, then crème de cassis and dark chocolate shavings and pipe tobacco setting a silky, loungy tone.
It’s serious and soul-stirring – and because the fruit is slightly firm and the alcohol is beautifully integrated, it is a wonderful food wine. This one’s for the secret poets and night gardeners out there. A proper, respectable, high-end Napa 94 pointer with endless subtle intrigue.
In the words of Voltaire: Il faut cultiver son jardin!
About the Producer
AXR Napa Valley was founded in 2014 by winemaker Jean Hoefliger and three friends – Don Van Laeken, Kelly Trevethan, and Mark Schratz – who wanted to build something a little different: high-end wine without the pretension. In 2017 they purchased a historic St. Helena estate with roots going back to 1841, a property that had variously served as a brewery, restaurant, inn, saloon, and winery over its long life. Jean himself trained in Switzerland, worked at Château Lynch-Bages in Bordeaux, and spent fifteen years establishing Alpha Omega in Napa before co-founding AXR – where he now has, as he puts it, the freedom to craft wines that represent the ultimate expression of Napa Valley. That freedom includes access to some of the valley's most coveted fruit sources: Beckstoffer To Kalon, Sleeping Lady, Stagecoach, and beyond – vineyards that routinely supply $200+ bottles. The 2021 Proprietary Red draws specifically from Coombsville, Yountville, and Oak Knoll.
- Blend75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Malbec, 7% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot
- WinemakerJean Hoefliger
- CountryUS
- RegionCalifornia
- Sub-RegionNorth Coast
- AppellationNapa Valley
- VineyardSourced from vineyards in Oak Knoll, Yountville, and Coombsville
- Oak40% new French oak
- Aging/Cooperage12 months
- Alcohol14.2%
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Proprietary Blends | US
