2019 PROMONTORY

Boom, Promontory, it's the third project of Bill Harlan. I guess he's passed it on to his son. It is really smoking, very unique. I don't know if you've ever heard of Harlan Estates, okay? Harlan was founded by a guy back in the 80s, his name was Bill Harlan. And he was, is a very wealthy dude. I guess he made his money in real estate or whatever. He was friends with Robert Mondavi. Went out to Europe, he went to Bordeaux, he went to Burgundy, and he fell in love with wine. As I assume a lot of people do when they go out there for the first time, right? Especially if you're kind of familiar with Napa. So you come home and you're just like, dude, you know, we put two and two together. You're like, I want to do what they're doing over here. I want to make Grand Cru wines. I want to make first growth wines. I want to do it here in Napa. So he set out to form Harlan Estates, which was his first project. But while he was building Harlan, he went hiking over here on the western side of Oakville on these like steep slopes, and he fell in love with this area. He was like, this is ******* kick-ass right here. This property. It wasn't for sale, he couldn't get it, but it was always kind of in the back of his mind. So Harlan became this big deal, and then he started Bond, and Bond is also a big deal. And they kind of focus on like five distinct different terroirs from five distinct different sites. And if you ever get a chance to taste all five from the same vintage, I did that one time, and it was really amazing, because the wines were awesome, and it's just they're so uniquely different from one another. It was almost like, what do you call it? Like a clinic in terroir. It was really like mind-blowing. Finally, back in I think 2004, this property became available. I want to say he bought 840 acres and planted less than 100. So this is a Bordeaux blend, Cabernet-based, I guess maybe 20-ish year old vines, growing on the west side of Oakville. And again, I don't know anything. What do I know? But in my humble opinion, this is more interesting than Harlan, because it has this unique mineral quality that I don't think I've ever encountered. The guy brought it to the restaurant, to Gregory, on Coravin. It had been open for a day, they'd been showing it around the day before. I don't know, maybe we just found it in the sweet spot. But man, not only was it like herbal, and Garrigue, and dark fruit, and just like really perfectly made, but it had this like high tone of minerality that I don't think I've come across in Napa quite like that. It was just very unique, very beautiful. This is not for everybody. This is gonna go on the list for probably $1,500. The 2019 Vintage, Jeb Dubonic, 100 points. Lisa Perotti Brown, 100 points. Suckling, 99 points. Galoni, 98 plus. I don't wanna, again, I hate to sell on scores, but when you spend this much money on a bottle, it's nice to have all that like extra affirmation, because you know, it's a big investment.