Cabernet Sauvignon "The Montelena Estate", Chateau Montelena, CA, 2007

Alfred Tubbs purchased 254 acres of land in the Calistoga district of Napa Valley in 1882.  Sadly, prohibition brought winemaking to a halt, and the family ended up selling the estate in 1958 to Yort and Jeannie Frank.  Jim Barret and Lee Paschich in purchased the estate and decided to take out the old vines and supplant them with Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay in 1969.  Their fate was sealed with the great blind tasting (dubbed the Judgement of Paris) in Bordeaux in 1976. In that tasting, they easily competed and sometimes won against some of the most famous of all French wines.