2016 Futo OV/SL

Futo is an 11-acre boutique winery on the Oakville Grade, in Oakville, one of Napa Valley’s premier areas. The winery was started in 2004 when the husband and wife team of Tom and Kyle Futo bought the property. The couple is originally from Wichita, Kansas, where Tom Futo built a career in financial investment. Like many Napa Valley boutique wineries aspiring to cult status, Futo produces Cabernet Sauvignon which in its earliest vintages earned high marks from reviewers, including Robert M. Parker Jr., who notes that “Tom and Kyle Futo are intent on producing something of world-class quality…” Grapes come from Futo’s Oakville and Stag’s Leap District vineyards. Futo hired some of Napa Valley’s biggest names in winemaking to help them achieve that goal. David Abreu is vineyard manager, Mark Aubert is winemaker “emeritus,” and Jason Exposto is winemaker.

Stags Leap District AVA in southern Napa Valley has a storied history. It is home to Stag’s Leap Cellars, whose 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon won the famous Judgment of Paris blind tasting that included several of Bordeaux’s most exalted First Growths. Vineyards were started in area in the late 19th century, but the district’s rise in prestige started in the late 1960s when Nathan Fay planted Cabernet Sauvignon. Fay later sold his estate to Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag’s Leap Cellars. The district was given its own AVA designation in 1989, and today there are 1,400 vineyard acres. The AVA is especially notable because it was the first in the U.S. to be granted AVA status based on terroir. Its distinctive soils is a mix of volcanic soils, river sediment and loamy clay-like soil. Because the soils don’t retain water well, vineyards in Stag’s Leap tend to grow fruit with great intensity and flavor. Cabernet Sauvignon accounts for 95% of the grapes planted in Stags Leap.