A First Growth in Napa Valley

One the perks of this job is getting to travel to wineries. Sometimes, we have to steel our palates for 9:00 AM tastings at these wineries. And as much as we love it, Napa Cabernet isn’t exactly our wake-up beverage of choice. But when we found ourselves in the cellar with Brad Grimes, the sun barely peeking over the Vaca Range, we suddenly didn’t care what time it was—as long as we got to keep tasting Abreu wines. 

For over 40 years, David Abreu has been the name in Napa Valley vineyard management. His client list is such a who’s who, it’s almost laughable: Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Colgin, Bryant Family, and Araujo are just the tip of his viticultural iceberg. For as much work as vineyards require, Abreu impressively goes above and beyond. In that early morning tasting, winemaker Brad Grimes educated us on the level of detail and attention that David and his team have put into his namesake brand. Tasting the wines, the results are not surprising: they are nothing short of mind-blowing. Vineyards are harvested in batches, so that every cluster is at optimal ripeness when picked. This smart, labor intensive practice makes fermenting and blending much more precise, ultimately lending a depth to the wines that we usually only see in First Growth Bordeaux. 

Brad, who oversees cellar operations, has worked with David for more than 20 years, giving him deeply intimate knowledge of those parcels. That kind of longevity is rare in Napa Valley, where winemakers typically stick with a winery for 5 or 10 years before moving on. And if that weren’t enough, Brad breaks from the hotshot winemaker norm by making Abreu his only job. He doesn’t have any consulting gigs, allowing him to focus solely on making every vintage of Abreu the best it can possibly be. 

While we respect the role critics play in this industry, we do frankly feel that these wines are consistently and criminally underrated. When we tasted the 2017s in barrel, we couldn’t believe our palates. They were sublime, transporting, and clearly in the upper echelon of Cabernets being produced globally. They carried the Abreu flag through and through, a testament to the power of two lives devoted to one goal: farm and make the best estate wines possible, every single year.