Why it matters
The producer
Beaulieu Vineyard is a Cabernet Sauvignon estate in Rutherford, in the heart of Napa Valley, California. Georges de Latour and his wife Fernande founded it in 1900. Their 200-acre BV Ranch No. 1, planted on the Rutherford benchlands along Highway 29, has supplied the Private Reserve without interruption since the 1940s.
What set Beaulieu apart from most of its Napa contemporaries was a single hire. In 1938, Georges de Latour brought André Tchelistcheff from France to run the cellar. Tchelistcheff had trained in Burgundy and at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris. He arrived with a different idea of what Californian Cabernet could be, and he acted on it immediately.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Rutherford is a small sub-appellation in the central Napa Valley, roughly midway between Calistoga to the north and the city of Napa to the south. The valley floor here is composed of deep, well-drained alluvial fans built up over centuries by runoff from the Mayacamas Mountains to the west. Drainage is good and the soils are relatively poor, both of which push vines to produce smaller, more concentrated fruit than they would in richer ground.
The climate in Rutherford is warmer than the southern end of the valley but benefits from afternoon marine influence that arrives through the Petaluma Gap and other breaks in the coastal range. Growing seasons are long and sunny, which ripens Cabernet Sauvignon fully while the warm days and cool nights preserve acidity in the skins and juice.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The Georges de Latour Private Reserve is made from BV Ranch No. 1 fruit. The 2022 vintage is 91 percent Cabernet Sauvignon blended with 9 percent Petit Verdot. After fermentation, the wine ages 21 months in French oak barrels, with 95 percent of those barrels new. The new oak proportion is high, which adds caramel and spice to the aromatic profile but is counterbalanced by the concentration that Rutherford fruit brings at full ripeness.
The Rutherford Reserve is made with a seven-day cold soak before fermentation begins. The cold soak draws colour and tannin from the skins slowly, before yeast activity heats the tank, allowing the winemaking team to manage the extraction of that cocoa-powder tannin character without overworking the fruit. The 2022 is 92 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 8 percent Petit Verdot, aged 20 months in French oak at 80 percent new.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range runs from entry-level Napa Valley bottlings up to the Private Reserve, with Rutherford as the geographic and quality centre of gravity.
The Georges de Latour Private Reserve is the top wine. It is a Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon with a small addition of Petit Verdot, aged longer and in more new oak than any other bottle in the range. The tannins are plush and the fruit profile is ripe, with cassis and red currant at the core and an aromatic lift of dusty rose and wild violet from the Rutherford fruit and integrated oak.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
The Rutherford Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is the right first bottle. It costs less than the Private Reserve, it makes the Rutherford address legible in the glass, and it explains the cold soak protocol that defines BV's house approach to tannin management. The seven-day soak draws out cocoa-powder tannins from the Rutherford bench before fermentation begins. In the glass, that reads as a firm but smooth mid-palate with layered cherry and plum fruit, a dusty mineral quality on the finish, and enough oak from 20 months in French barrels to add body without overwhelming the fruit.