AXR Proprietary Red Napa Valley 2021

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!