Yahoo Lifestyle Our Napa Valley Wine Club Is Shipping 3 Stellar Reds Next Month—Here’s How to Get Yours
As the team is getting the first shipment of wines for 2025 ready to send out, it’s an exciting time to be a member of Robb Report 672 Napa Valley Wine Club. With three very different red wines from varied vintages and three of Napa’s choicest AVAs in the lineup, this is a great time to get in on the action if you have not already joined. This season’s selections include a Cabernet Sauvignon from Oakville, a Yountville Merlot, and a red blend from Mount Veeder, a trio of choices that will come as no surprise to those who are accustomed to quarterly shipments of Napa Valley red wine from rock-solid producers who are not quite household names but turn out excellent bottles vintage after vintage. The only wine club that exclusively supplies its members with red wine from Napa Valley, 672 is named for the number of bottles contained in a standard pallet of wine. All are produced in very small quantities, normally just a few barrels, and they are prime examples of the valley’s superlative single vineyards or cuvées from its top sites.
The man behind Robb Report’s wine club is Napa Valley insider Dave Shefferman, who sources small-lot offerings—the type of bottlings that normally only get sold to winery’s private club members—via his wide network of wine country contacts, winemakers, and vintners. Shefferman starts each season with a scouting process involving tastings with producers, meeting with winery principals, and going to industry events. While other wine clubs have a single buyer making purchasing decisions, Shefferman leads a tasting panel made up of winemakers, sommeliers, and WSET-certified professionals, who blind-taste the submissions for consideration. Each quarter, the team starts with hundreds of wines that are whittled down to the consideration list; tasting blind removes any preconceived notions based on the brand, the winemaker, or even the label art, and ensures consensus across the entire group of palates.
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After the choices are whittled down to fewer than 20, we taste the wines and help Shefferman choose the final three that will be shipped to club members, who receive two bottles of each, one to enjoy now, and one to lay down for a later date. (Full disclosure, we also write the tasting cards that are included with each shipment and the club producer profiles, but we do not receive any additional compensation from the wine club.) Each six-bottle pack, sent out four times a year, is priced at between $550 and $650, including shipping, for an average price of $100 per bottle. If you consider the asking prices of many Napa Cabs, this is an amazing deal for limited quantity, difficult to find Napa reds. And if you especially love a wine, there are sometimes limited bottles available for one-off purchase to stock up your cellar further. Looking at the lineup of exceptional bottles that will soon be on its way to members, this is an excellent opportunity to savor examples of the wide array of red wines that has built Napa Valley’s reputation. Here’s a peek into what is en route.
Become a Member of the 672 Wine Club
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Hoopes Vineyard 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Napa Valley
Hoopes Vineyard proprietor Lindsay Hoopes recalls the 2019 vintage as “essentially perfect,” with a cool flowering period and a moderate growing season with only a few 100-degree days during which the vines required minimal irrigation. Winemaker Aaron Pott is a veteran of Château Troplong Mondot and Château La Tour Figeac in France as well as Beringer and Quintessa. Hoopes Vineyard 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, which Pott aged for 28 months in 100 percent French oak, is from the Oakville AVA in the heart of Napa. This stunning wine is inky garnet in color with enticing aromas of crushed violet petals, graphite, red plum, and red raspberry. It has soft, polished tannins with flavors of purple plum, cranberry, blackberry, and rose petal. There’s a bright splash of acidity on the finish with lingering sensations of eucalyptus and juniper berry.
Rudd 2021 Crossroads Mountain Blend Mt. Veeder Napa Valley
After consulting some of France’s foremost wine experts, founder Leslie Rudd planted new vines selected specifically for the attributes of each soil type on his 55-acre Oakville estate before renovating and expanding the hospitality building and planting a California inspired garden adjacent to the winery. Today his daughter Samantha runs Rudd alongside managing director Oscar Henquet and winemaker Natalie Bath. At an elevation of 1,600 feet, Rudd’s nearby Mt. Veeder Estate has 16 acres under vine on an 80-acre property bordered by Lokoya, VGS Chateau Potelle, and Mt. Brave. A blend of 37 percent Merlot, 31 percent Cabernet Franc, 17 percent Petit Verdot, 10 percent Malbec, and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2021 Crossroads Mountain Blend is inky purple in the glass with aromas of blackberry, violet petal, orange zest, and freshly ground clove. It has excellent acidity and polished tannins with flavors of cherry vanilla, raspberry, milk chocolate, red currant, and a touch of brown baking spices.
Tamber Bey Vineyards 2022 Merlot Deux Chevaux Vineyard Yountville Napa Valley
With a CV that includes multiple 100-point scores from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and serving on Napa Valley Vintners Leadership Development Program, winemaker Sally Blum is a true under-the-radar Napa phenomenon. Grapes for her 2022 Tamber Bey Vineyards Merlot were grown in the 60-acre Deux Chevaux Vineyard in Yountville and harvested in September of that year before being aged for 19 months in 60 percent new French oak and 40 percent neutral French oak. Deep violet in the glass, this delightful wine offers aromas of blackberry, cassis, black cherry, and white chocolate. It has pleasantly grippy tannins and well-integrated acidity with flavors of ripe black fruits, dark chocolate, anisette, dried thyme, and a soft touch of caramel in the finish.
