Winemaker Notes
This wine is lush and full-bodied, with notes of juicy black cherry, warm spices, and heady lavender. Occasional hints of racy inkiness and minerality peek through.
Blend: 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Farming for this site was taken over in January, with pruning led by Benoit Touquette and executed by David Abreu’s team. “We set the vineyard and canopy up for success,” says Scott Becker. With its southern exposure on Pritchard Hill, the site retained heat even at night, leaving the vines no chance to rest, making sorting critical in 2022. For all the hand-wringing over the vintage’s challenges, this is an impressive wine. Alluring aromas of unsmoked tobacco, fresh sage, coriander cream, and baking spices lead into a vibrant fruit profile—red, black, and blue-toned, with excellent density. Sweet cedar and mocha flood the palate, delivering the characteristic Realm richness, yet with notable precision. The ripe tannins carry through, layered with dried sage, thyme, and rosemary, all lifted by perfumed high tones. Full-bodied and structured, this wine balances richness with tension, promising a strong future.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Houyi Vineyard comes from a vineyard on Pritchard Hill and is based on 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot. It has plenty of mountain structure and minerality as well as beautiful black and blue-tinged fruits, some violet, leafy tobacco, and foresty, herbal undertones, medium to full-bodied richness, and ripe, polished tannins. It's a pure, polished, elegant Realm that will age gracefully over the coming 15 years.
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James Suckling
Distinctive, elegant and on the light side for a Pritchard Hill wine, but so fresh and drinkable. Red and black fruit, spearmint, red cherry, raspberry, floral and potpourri flavors. On the palate it expands and broadens, giving lots of pure fruit flavors and attractive spice and cocoa accents.
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Vinous
The 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Houyi Vineyard is a dense, explosive wine. It shows the radiant, solar style of the year but with the body and texture that so many wines lack. This is the first vintage Realm made following their acquisition of this site, and they conducted the heaviest sorting here. Super-ripe red cherry, red plum, mocha, spice, lavender and orange peel stain the palate.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Realm's 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Houyi Vineyard includes 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. Aromas of black cherries, blackberry notes and hints of dried herbs mark the nose, while the medium- to full-bodied palate is framed by dusty tannins, which exhibit a slight coarseness on the finish.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.