2023 KHK Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Inevitably as we grab the corkscrew and approach the blue foil, the opening chunka-chunk of Green Day’s “Brain Stew” swells in our heads (occasionally it’s Nirvana, or even Also Sprach Zarathustra, the Strauss masterpiece, if we’re feeling particularly inspired). Our Hillside bottling is the big brother, the one to pop when you’ve high on life, it’s ON, and you’re feeling like dunking into something seriously hedonistic.
Sourced entirely from Lindsay’s family’s Shifflett Ranch, we chose the best rows along the eastern benchland, planted in 2017, for a limited run of single-vineyard greatness - THANK YOU TRB! Crushed it! Not for the shy, this rocking Napa Valley vintage is dark and intense, popping and percolating with head-spinning levels of aromatics, and that’s before it even hits your tongue. Sort of a magic-carpet-ride of brooding intensity, that, like the Napa, unfolds minute by minute for hours. As the cork unseals with a whisper, Green Day keeps cranking and you get the first olfactory hit – perfumy sweet roses and what feels like sweet, toasted peppercorns, a ferrous note (props to the terroir!) and a whiff of warm cloves. The color! We’d call it midnight maybe, or onyx, and it hits your mouth like a rush of joyous savory darkness. It’s a bit of brain overload at first, in the best way, and as you continue to drink it you can begin to separate the components – the blackberry spectrum, leather, ion, pipe tobacco, sweet foresty earth elements, and a very cool aged-beef-like note that sends you to get some killer cheese and throw a steak on ASAP. With air, the acidity clarifies, giving backbone and structure. Immensely satisfying at this tender age with some superb protein and of course will hold in your cellar for easily a decade or more. Only 300 cases made – best of the best!