Winemaker Notes
Rutherford is the heart of Napa Valley and home to Beaulieu Vineyard. For more than 20 years, our winemakers have crafted our Cabernet Sauvignon, which defines the unique expression of our Rutherford vineyards with rich dark berry and cocoa, accented by well-integrated oak spices for a long finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A soft and velvety red with chocolate and currant character. Medium to full body, creamy tannins and a fruity finish. Extremely polished and approachable. Shows the dusty character of the harvest. 88% cabernet sauvignon and 7% petit verdot with merlot and petite sirah. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Muted, thick and dense in berry, this is a rewarding wine made well and in a full-bodied style. High-toned flavors of currant, citrus and cassis are complemented in cedar, pencil shavings and a whiff of old-school pipe tobacco with a lasting taste of toasted oak.
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Jeb Dunnuck
More spice, tobacco, and cedar notes emerge from the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford, another medium-bodied, nicely textured, balanced wine in the lineup that has loads of Cabernet character. It’s drinking beautifully today, and I suspect will be best enjoyed in its first decade of life. As Napa Cabernet goes, it’s a smoking value.
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Wine Spectator
Rather direct, with a beam of cassis and bitter plum fruit cruising through, showing some polish while singed vanilla and red licorice notes chime in.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.