2023 Gibbs Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc Centa Vineyard St. Helena 750 ml

There was a time when rock-solid Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc buys were easy to find. But now, under pressure to cut costs and increase production, some of the biggest names in Sauv Blanc look FAR afield for grapes. Bottles once proudly sourced from Napa Valley now say “North Coast” on the label.  

That’s why Gibbs Vineyards Sauv Blanc is such an outlier. 

Stationed on a beautiful piece of land in a prime slice of St. Helena, the Gibbs family have owned their estate for seven decades. That translates to low capital costs, which get passed on to the consumer—which is why Gibbs’ phenomenal Sauvignon Blanc, sourced SOLELY from their Centra Vineyard in St. Helena, comes at the kind of price you don’t see anymore. 

In most years, growers in the Napa Valley start picking Sauvignon Blanc in August. In the cool, dry 2023 season, most started around Labor Day. This extra hangtime made for vivid, effusive aromas while still keeping refreshing acidity. Napa doyenne and Wine Bible author Karen MacNeil thinks the vintage is destined to be one of Napa’s all-time greats, à la 1974, 1994, or 2013. 

The historic Centa Vineyard, first planted in 1865, is located near the Mayacamas mountain range in St. Helena, at the bottleneck of the upper Valley. This is the pinch in the “hourglass” of the valley, where heat reflects off both the Vaca and Mayacamas ranges down to the valley floor like nowhere else in the valley, giving Centa Sauvignon Blanc powerful richness and notes of ripe green apple, peach flesh, and grapefruit. In a vintage like 2023, it’s lights-out.