2022 Gratus Estate Red Blend Napa Valley

Pope Valley is the Napa most tourists never see. No tasting rooms lining the highway, no tour buses.

Just steep limestone hillsides, hot days, cold nights, and some of the most serious small-production farming in the county. That's where Thomas Wargovich planted his vineyard.

Thomas was a cardiac surgeon — and before that, a botany and biology student at West Virginia University. He purchased this 27-acre parcel in Pope Valley in 2001 and spent the next four years fighting through permitting before he could plant a single vine.

He also enrolled at Napa Valley College, completed their viticulture and enology program, and eventually landed an internship at O'Shaughnessy Estate on Howell Mountain under winemaker Sean Capiaux. The estate is now a living arboretum alongside the vineyard — over 1,000 trees, including 300+ rare and endangered conifer species, many on the IUCN critical list. He named his winery GRATUS — Latin for gratitude.

The wine is estate fruit only. Cabernet Sauvignon leads, with Malbec and Petite Sirah rounding it out, all from ten planted acres.

Grapes come in by hand before sunrise while they are still cold. Cold soak, then about twenty-two months in French oak, with blending decisions made as it ages.

Production here is tiny. Robbie Meyer has made every vintage since 2012, and the estate turns out only a few hundred cases a year.

Mountain fruit, small hands, no shortcuts. Open it with a steak.