2023 The Big Ticket Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Napa Valley 750 ml

It all began in a stone-walled cellar—a wood-raftered place lit by dim sconces, the air chilly on the skin. The winemaker, a friend of Wine Access, unstopped a wine thief into a glass and handed us the estate’s saturated red 2023 blend.

Our reply, a mix of awe and envy, might have had a four-letter word or two mixed in but the import was: “We’ve got to have this wine.” The winemaker demurred by reminding us of the winery’s usual SRP: around $300—a tad exclusionary for our members in search of a smart buy.

Then, after a moment of thought, from the shadows and barrel racks came a different answer: “There may be another way.” There was a small side project, we learned—the same meticulously farmed Oakville vineyards that have earned three-figure scores from Antonio Galloni and others, but with sourcing disguised and blending and distribution fully in the winemaker’s control.

The exclusive 2023 Big Ticket bottle on offer today is that side project—crafted by one of Napa’s brightest talents, bottled by us. It shows the elegance of the blue-chip site’s gravelly loam soils, the big-shouldered power of Napa Valley’s intense heat, the tension of cool nights and morning fog, not to mention the temperate nature of the 2023 vintage itself.

Unlike other globally famous consultants, there’s no one “style” attached to this winemaker’s name. Their signature lies in perfecting the details, in getting access to the best sites and—on occasions like this one—in old-school discretion.

You won’t be able to boast about this wine using the famous names of the winemaker or the iconic vineyard. But what’s in the glass is the real McCoy.