Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
From a certified-organic site in Rutherford and 100% varietal, this wine has benefitted from time in the bottle, dazzling in soft silky red fruit and jolts of nutmeg and dust. Beautifully layered, structured and brightly vibrant, it has impressive coaxings of cigar, cedar and a rich hint of wild vanilla.
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James Suckling
Some darker and more powerful style to this single vineyard cab that delivers abundant blackcurrant and blueberry aromas and flavors. The tannins are long and fine, really even and commanding. Beautiful balance, too. Drink or hold.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The Heitz Cellar Trailside Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is finally fulfilling its promise of brilliance. The 2013 vintage is the winery's best to date. TASTING NOTES: This wine is complex and beautiful. Its rustic notes work well with its ripe red and black fruit charms. Pair it with a savory lamb stew and enjoy the flavors as they work together. (Tasted: July 18, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Spectator
This throws off some seriously ripe and alluring fruit, with raspberry, blackberry and cherry coulis notes streaming through, framed tightly by a mouthwatering anise note and ending with a bolt of graphite. Impressive focus and drive throughout. Best from 2020 through 2035.
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Wine & Spirits
A brisk and powerful wine that needs time to develop into its tannic structure, this grows at an estate vineyard along the Silverado Trail in Rutherford. With air, the crunchy red fruit integrates into the firm tannins, their green edges gentled into earthy red-cherry tones. This has the fresh ripeness of a fine 2013 Napa Valley cabernet, suited to aging five years or more.
Renowned for crafting Napa Valley's first cult wines, Heitz Cellar is globally recognized as the crown jewel of American wine. The timeless post-Prohibition style of winemaking endures with esteemed winemaker, Brittany Sherwood, producing elegant and balanced wines sourced from 100% organic and biodynamic Napa Valley fruit. Pioneering pure varietal, single-vineyard wines that can age for decades, including the iconic Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Heitz Cellar wines hail from the region’s most premier vineyard sites including Oakville, Rutherford, Howell Mountain, St. Helena, and Oak Knoll. Family-owned since its founding in 1961, Heitz Cellar continues to embody the artistry and legacy of classic winemaking with single-vineyard wines that position it as one of the world’s leading wine estates.
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.