T H E C O N C E P T

WHAT THIS WINE IS ABOUT
Wines have an extraordinary capacity to reflect the environment in which they’re grown. A point not lost on the current crop of American vintners eager to have their wine express increasingly smaller plots of land.

Against this trend of vineyard-designated wines comes THIRTEEN — a wine made not from a single vineyard but from a baker’s dozen, each one more esteemed than the next. What distinguishes these vineyards is that they have been chosen as the best representatives of their respective sub-appellations: Howell Mountain, Rutherford, etc. Napa Valley has 13 of these sub-appellations, or did, when we picked the fruit. (More on this in a moment.) The idea behind THIRTEEN was to blend one ton of grapes from each of these 13 vineyards to create a wine that is conspicuously connected to

“A new wine is both an invention and a discovery.”
Hugh Johnson

Napa Valley. A wine that is the truest expression of what the Valley has to offer. As far as we know, no one has ever tried to capture Napa in its totality. Our guess is, no one’s even thought of it. It is, after all, a daunting task to collect grapes from every soil type, every microclimate, every terroir. But the question remains: is this invention of ours a good idea? We’ll leave that for you to discover.

WINEMAKER’S NOTES
“My approach to making this wine was complexity through integration, balance through restraint. Protect the grapes, respect their differences, and get out of the way. It worked. Even in its infancy, THIRTEEN is already showing the balance of a world-class wine. On the front end, you’ll find cassis, rhubarb and strawberry, which gives way to a rich, textured mid palate that is just now beginning to express the hillside characteristics I wanted the wine to have. The finish is long. So long, you’ll have plenty of time to rethink what a cult wine is all about.” — Steve Reynolds

FROM "WHAT IF" TO "WOW"
THIRTEEN has been something of a contrarian's wine from the beginning. Until now, there had not been a single wine that attempted to define Napa Valley as a whole. It is, after all, a daunting task to collect grapes from every soil type, every microclimate, every terroir. And really, that's not the trend these days, what with everyone trying to have their wine express increasingly smaller plots of land.

The idea behind THIRTEEN is that, while the parts are great, their sum is greater. If you think of Napa Valley as a series of neighborhoods (Howell Mountain, Rutherford, etc.), each one struggling to promote its own identity, then THIRTEEN is the town they all belong to. It is the one wine with the most connections to Napa Valley.

It's a bold idea, a wacky idea, a technological tour de force. So how does it taste? (Here's the "wow" part.) Well, rather than toot our own horn, we'll simply quote The Bounty Hunter, a merchant that Wine & Spirits Magazine calls "cult wine central."
"One of the most decadent and compelling red blends we've encountered in recent memory...a runaway hit with anyone lucky enough to have tasted it."

Now the bad news. THIRTEEN is a strictly limited-production wine. Only 900-odd cases are produced each year. That's because, by decree, we take only one ton of fruit from each AVA.

13 (AND COUNTING)
In 2001, Napa Valley claimed 13 sub-appellations. In April of 2004, Oak Knoll District became Napa Valley's 14th sub-appellation, continuing a trend seen in every grape growing region of the United States.

The Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley (its formal name) is comprised of 8,300 acres, of which 3,500 are planted to 14 varieties, mostly Merlot, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. While there are 16 bonded wineries within its boundaries, more than 40 wineries source fruit from it. Among them, Opus One, Joseph Phelps, and now, of course, THIRTEEN.

The creation of a brand new American Viticultural Area (AVA) might seem to have more to do with marketing than merit. But the truth is, wines from Oak Knoll have more in common with each other than with wines from anywhere else. What that is exactly, is hard to pin down. And therein lies the elusiveness of terroir. Why does a Cabernet Sauvignon from one plot of land taste consistently different from another one grown a few hundred yards away? When everything else is accounted for--rootstock, clonal selection, vine and row spacing, trellising, canopy management, disease control, irrigation, fertilization, and winemaking--what explains the difference one tastes?

In a word, soil. Soil is what makes wines distinctive. Soil is what takes wine beyond fruit. Soil is what wine-geeks mean when they speak of wines having a sense of place.

All of which brings us back to THIRTEEN. As Napa Valley continues to evolve--to discover itself--so, too, will our wine. Because it is not the hand that makes the wine, it's the land. And the brand follows the land.