2012 Bevan Cellars Sugarloaf Mountain Red

Bevan Cellars is a boutique winery in Santa Rosa, California, which uses grapes from vineyards in Oakville's Bennett Valley. The winery is owned by Russell Bevan and Victoria De Crescenzo, who met in Des Moines, moved to Minneapolis and eventually decided to give up their jobs in the dental industry to return to Napa Valley, where Russell had grown up. The couple started with a few grapevines planted in their front yard and now contract for grapes in the choice Showket Vineyard of Oakville and the Dry Stack Vineyard in Bennett Valley, in northern Sonoma Valley. Their first vintage was 2004. Bevan Cellar’s signature wines are the Cabernet Sauvignons, though they have also produced Syrah, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc. Robert M. Parker has been highly complimentary: “A small artisanal operation in Santa Rosa…Bevan Cellars has assembled a stunning line-up of wines….I can’t recommend this up-and-coming producer’s wines highly enough.”

Napa Valley AVA is the most famous winemaking region in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. With nearly 43,000 acres of vineyards and more than 300 wineries, it is the heart of fine wine production in the United States. Winemaking started in Napa in 1838 when George C. Yount planted grapes and began producing wine commercially. Other winemaking pioneers followed in the late 19th century, including the founders of Charles Krug, Schramsberg, Inglenook and Beaulieu Vineyards. An infestation of phylloxera, an insect that attacks vine roots, and the onset of Prohibition nearly wiped out the nascent Napa wine industry in the early 20th century. But by the late 1950s and early 1960s Robert Mondavi and other visionaries were producing quality wines easily distinguishable from the mass-produced jug wines made in California’s Central Valley. Napa Valley’s AVA was established in 1983, and today there are 16 sub-appellations within the Napa Valley AVA. Many grapes grow well in Napa’s Mediterranean climate, but the region is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay is also very successfully cultivated, and about 30% of the AVA’s acreage is planted to white grapes, with the majority of those grapes being Chardonnay,