Unbelievable Insider Pricing on Boutique Cali Cabernet

2019 Chiron "Mountain Reserve" Napa / Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon (Elsewhere $100) ($24.95)

Chiron Winery was founded in Calistoga by Mark McCoy and Bobby Moy. From the winery: "Our approach to making wine parallels this link between nature and culture. We select ideal vineyard sites and apply both art and science in our winemaking. We find these vineyards through our relationships with passionate farmers who share our love of living soils to grow the best possible grapes. In the winery we foster the wine, using minimal intervention, to create wine that best expresses the vineyards. We prefer the term, winegrowing, to describe this approach to making wine."

Ryan Woodhouse | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: December 15, 2024

A true "Reserve" level wine that gets top notch treatment from start to finish! Chiron's Mountain Reserve is an homage to the Mayacamas Mountains. This wine combines three different vineyards all located on the east facing slopes of the Mayacamas. One site sits high on Mt Veeder, one on Spring Mountain, and one just across the Napa -Sonoma County line in Knights Valley. The qualities of each site is carefully matched in this painstaking blend. The wines are matured for 26 months in 70% new French oak cooperage before being blended then returned to large format 2100 liter French oak casks for an additional one year of aging. This long elevage in oak has allowed the muscular tannins to perfectly integrate with the dense, rich, dark fruit. This is a formidable wine with lots and power and intensity. The structure is beautifully polished from expert (and patient winemaking), but this still benefits from a good hour in the decanter to fully open up. Bold aromas and flavors of creme de cassis, black cherry, mulberry compote, mountain herbs, lavender, pipe tobacco, exotic oak spices. Full bodied, inky, powerful. This is serious wine that can easily sit in a lineup of $100+ mountain grown Napa Cabs and hold its own. Don't be concerned by our deeply discounted insider Advantage pricing, this is the real deal in decadent, powerful, age worthy Cab.

2019 Chiron "Paint of Moonlight - Pelkan Ranch Vineyard" Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (Elsewhere $150) ($29.95)

Ryan Woodhouse | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: December 15, 2024

We recently purchased several wines from this small, boutique winery based in Napa Valley and they are phenomenal! Our Insider's Advantage prices are almost too good to be true, but rest assured the wines are fantastic! Owner / winemaker Bobby Moy learned his craft working under the likes of Thomas Rivers Brown, Joel Aiken and Corey Beck. With more than a decade of experience working with high-end fruit, Bobby teamed up with his father to create their own label focused on the finest vineyard sites in the region, and making no expense spared, tiny productions wines. The source for this Cabernet bottling is Pelkan Ranch in Knights Valley. This renowned property shares a mountain ridgeline with Peter Michael's Estate Vineyard that produces the famed "Les Pavots" bottling. With the same elevated perch on the slopes of Mount St. Helena, the vines here grow in very rocky, iron rich, red volcanic soils. Pelkan is also a source for celebrated wines from the likes of Keplinger, Carlisle and Trinitas. When I had the chance to buy some of this powerful mountain-grown Cabernet for a HUGELY discounted price I jumped at it! Make no mistake, this is serious wine with powerful layers of deep red fruits, bramble, plum, high-country chaparral, leather, graphite, and volcanic minerals. Firm and muscular on the palate with plenty of ripe, succulent fruit coating the powerful tannin structure. Give this beauty a nice hour decant and enjoy with grilled red meat anytime of the next 10+ years.

2017 Chiron "Spring Theory" Spring Mountain District Cabernet Sauvignon (Elsewhere $150) ($34.95)

Ryan Woodhouse | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: December 15, 2024

From the famed Spring Mountain Vineyards property that has produced some of the most incredible, age worthy Cabs in the history of the valley. This historic property, once three separate estates, is a patchworks of dozens of blocks draped over the dramatic contours and hillsides of Spring Mountain. Many blocks are terraced into the mountain sides and planted to heritage clones with long ties to the estate. Chiron owner / winemaker Bobby Moy gets a precious few tons of fruit and treats it to a long, slow fermentation and maceration. The wine is then matured for 24 months in French oak barriques, then another year in large format oak cask to further refine the wine's texture. This is absolutely classic Spring Mountain Cab with plenty of raw power and structure but also the tell tale savory, tobacco, pine forest, leather, and cedar elements that seems to define the wines from this heralded locale. I love Spring Mountain Cab for it's amplification of what Cabernet really tastes like. It's not just about big, ripe fruit, Spring Mountain always seems to preserve the very essence of "Cabernet-ness" more than other sub-region in Napa. With a nice few years in bottle this beauty is juts entering it's prime drinking window for another 10 years of perfect drinking! Our incredible Insider's Advantage pricing won't last, and there aren't many cases to go around.

2019 Chiron "Candor - Bear Flag Vineyard" Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (Elsewhere $150) ($39.95)

Ryan Woodhouse | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: December 15, 2024

Chiron's "Candor - Bear Flag Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon comes from a tiny one-acre vineyard just off HWY 128 at the base of the Mayacamas Mountains. Chiron proprietor / winemaker Bobby Moy (who FYI learnt his craft working under Thomas Rivers-Brown, Joel Aiken and Corey Beck) lives next door to this vineyard and personally farms it by hand. The vines are 35 years old, growing in an alluvial fan of volcanic gravel that has eroded down from the mountains. Being right up against the base of the mountains these vines are quite shaded from the afternoon sun allowing a long and balanced growing season. The yields are typically very low with 1 - 1.5 tons of fruit, just enough to make a couple barrels of this delicious wine. This is a classically styled Napa Cab with blue to black fruit, blackcurrant, hurtleberry, graphite, camphor, cigar box notes, lots of rocky mineral tones underpinning the brooding, concentrated fruit. Working directly with the winery to clear some last of vintage inventory, we can offer this to you, our Insider's Advantage mailing list, at a ridiculously great price. Beautiful, hand-crafted, small production, single vineyard Napa Cabernet for under $40!