Winemaker Notes
#51 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
Great vintages are often signaled early in a wine’s life. Mere weeks into existence, the richness, balance and power of 2023 was clear. Carefully sourced Napa Valley vineyards produced great dividends with a perfect marriage of round tannin and supple fruit. Brilliant scarlet red on the rim, denoting a pronounced natural acidity, the wine quickly finds depth in an opaque, violet hue. A rich nose of crushed minerals and red/black berry fruit fills the glass, framed by dusky, dark violets. Complexity on the initial palate girds the expectation of an unbridled wine. Like gentle giant, this wine clearly has a powerful build but conveys a restrained intensity. Soft tannins marked by toasty oak and a wide frame of confit red and purple fruits mark the midpalate. Freshness extends the long finish. There is something here for everyone, and in abundance.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Juicy red and black currants, plums, earthy herbs, and chocolate all shine in the 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, a medium to full-bodied, round, and lush 2023 with sweet tannins and a great finish. Napa needs more wines like this, and it's well worth seeking out.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Assuming pricing remains stable, Caterwaul's 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley—a 14,000-case blend this year—should remain one of the valley's greatest values. Boasting wonderful purity of fruit—black cherries and cassis—plus floral-herbal nuances, it's full-bodied, rich and velvety, maybe a bit open-knit but flavorful and structured, with a lasting finish.
Barrel Sample: 91-93 -
James Suckling
Dark fruited and spicy, with fresh plum and dried flower aromas. The palate is full-bodied with a luscious, juicy mouthfeel, supple tannins and bright acidity. This is such a fun and friendly Napa cabernet in an early-drinking style.
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Wine Spectator
A rock-solid Cab, offering a steady beam of warmed cassis and cherry reduction notes laced with a loamy accent to keep everything grounded. Dark tobacco and a flash of walnut husk add range through the finish, which hasn’t fully unwound just yet.
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Vinous
The 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) is beautiful. Sensual, open-knit and inviting, the 2022 has so much to offer. Crushed flowers, sweet red-toned fruit, white pepper and spice are very nicely lifted. This mid-weight, beautifully pliant Cabernet will be impossible to resist in its youth. Stylistically, the Napa Valley Cabernet feels just a touch riper than the other wines in the range.
One of the most prestigious wines of the world capable of great power and grace, Napa Valley Cabernet is a leading force in the world of fine, famous, collectible red wine. Today the Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon are so intrinsically linked that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this marriage came to light; sudden international recognition rained upon Napa with the victory of the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Cabernet Sauvignon undoubtedly dominates Napa Valley today, covering half of the land under vine, commanding the highest prices per ton and earning the most critical acclaim. Cabernet Sauvignon’s structure, acidity, capacity to thrive in multiple environs and ability to express nuances of vintage make it perfect for Napa Valley where incredible soil and geographical diversity are found and the climate is perfect for grape growing. Within the Napa Valley lie many smaller sub-AVAs that express specific characteristics based on situation, slope and soil—as a perfect example, Rutherford’s famous dust or Stags Leap District's tart cherry flavors.