2018 Heitz Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon Martha's Vineyard Napa Valley 750 ml

In the early 1960s, Tom and Martha May moved from Southern California to Napa Valley, where they purchased a property from Barney and Belle Rhodes. The sellers left two bottles of wine at the house as a welcome gift for the new couple.

The wine was from Heitz Cellars, and eventually the Mays met the Heitz family. Tom May had no experience in grape growing, but he started tending grapes on his property guided by Joe Heitz, who quickly recognized the outstanding quality of the Cabernet Sauvignon the Mays’ property was putting forth. 

Although Joe blended that wine into his 1965 Napa Valley bottling, Tom May requested a barrel of the Cabernet from Martha’s Vineyard as part of payment for the grapes. Joe tasted the wine and was so impressed that, in 1966, he decided to bottle a single-vineyard Cabernet from the site. 

At a time when the greatest Napa Valley wines simply wore the Napa Valley label, this was monumental. And since that 1966 vintage, Heitz Martha’s Vineyard has stood out as one of Napa Valley’s finest, thanks to the unique site that Tom May and Joe Heitz groomed to greatness. 

The Martha’s Vineyard site has been so renowned for so long that the painstaking work behind the wine is often overlooked. Joe Heitz favored an extremely long elevage that recalls Brunello di Montalcino as much as California Cabernet, and that tradition lives on: The Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet is fermented in stainless steel before spending nine months in upright cask, three years in barrel, and one year in bottle in large neutral American oak casks. It then rests another year in bottle before release.