A deal many months in the making has finally come through - and it was well worth the wait! I visited Groth Estate back in November of 2025 and had the chance to walk the vineyard with owner Suzanne Groth and winemaker Ted Henry. We tasted through the entire lineup, including a few lovely library wines, and I was thoroughly impressed across the board. However, in my mind, there was one absolute standout: the 2021 Groth “Oakcross” Proprietary Red. Ted explained that the wine was made in homage to the original name of the estate, first planted in the 1970s before it became known as Groth. The blend is 63% Cabernet Sauvignon from the Reserve Block, situated right along Conn Creek, combined with a generous dollop of Merlot at 34% and a splash of Petit Verdot at 3%. It’s a truly Bordeaux-inspired composition that perfectly melds the powerful, muscular fruit of Oakville Cabernet with wonderful mid-palate buoyancy and plushness from Merlot. The balance this bottling possesses is just wonderful. There’s delicious exotic black and blue fruit, cassis, mulberry, and bittersweet baker’s chocolate, but also gravelly, rocky minerals, charred cedar, and subtle oak spice. The wine is perfectly ripe and expressive, yet comes in just under 14% ABV. It’s approachable in the near term, with fine, polished, silky tannins, but clearly also has the potential to age beautifully for a decade or more. I thought this wine easily stood up to the much more expensive Reserve Cabernet bottling at $150+, and perhaps even surpassed it in many ways. At its typical $110 price tag, I think this wine has to be in the conversation for one of the best values in Oakville. At our truly special Insider’s Advantage price, it’s an absolute no-brainer. Unbeatable quality and pedigree at this price point. Enjoy!

Here's a magic trick: pull fruit from your Reserve Cabernet Block, the same block that goes into your $150 Reserve, which is the same wine that earned Robert Parker's first 100-point score for a California Cabernet back in 1985, and fold it into a Proprietary Red instead. Instead of $150, you pay under $60, and presto, you've got this unbeatable deal of a bottle. What lands in the glass is California in its Sunday best with a Bordeaux accent. The fruit is dense and dark and almost brooding, with an inky core framed by the kind of gravelly, fine-grained structure the Left Bank of Bordeaux built its name on. Power and polish in the same mouthful. At under sixty dollars, calling this a steal undersells this bad boy.

Dark brooding fruit, lush and powerful balanced with restraint. Cedarwood and blackberries with firm yet fine-grained tannins. This is drinking well now and for years to come!