1993 Harlan Estate - Napa Valley - 1 Flaske (0,75 l)

Harlan Estate is a high-profile, critically-lauded wine producer based in the Oakville AVA of Napa Valley, California. The vineyard is superbly located in the hills above Martha's Vineyard (Heitz Cellar) and To Kalon (Robert Mondavi), just north of Napa town itself. Its Cabernet Sauvignon-based flagship wine is one of California's most sought-after wines, regularly commanding prices exceeding $1000 per bottle.

The estate was founded in 1984 by property developer William (known as "Bill") Harlan. He had previously developed the Meadowood resort before buying 240 acres (97 hectares) of steep, densely wooded land above the western Oakville benchlands. Some 40 acres (16 hectares) of this was cleared for vineyards. These are mostly planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, but with smaller amounts of other red Bodeaux varieties.

Harlan Estate's first commercial vintage was the 1990, which was released in 1996 with a then-expensive price tag of $65 a bottle. Since then, the estate has cemented itself as one of the most highly-regarded wine producers in the world, with eight vintages achieving 100-point scores from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate. As a result, prices have risen exponentially, and today the average global price (ex-tax) per 750ml bottle approaches $1,500 USD. In addition to the flagship red, Harlan Estate also makes a second wine, The Maiden.


The property is predominantly east-facing, but undulating topography means that within it there are slopes facing nearly all points of the compass. This provides a more varied mesoclimate than is typical for Napa valley estates. As well as Cabernet Sauvignon, the 40 acres of vineyard also features some Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The vines were planted between 1985 and the early 1990s. The eastern blocks are sited on residual sediments on top of volcanic bedrock, including fractured flow rock and tuff. Western blocks lie mostly on older residual sediments developed from Great Valley sequence bedrock.

Whole-berry fermentations in small oak vats help provide a gentle extraction. Free-run wine is then fed by gravity into barrels for malolactic fermentation. The wine then spends around 24 to 26 months in a mix of new and used French oak barrels. It is bottled unfined and unfiltered at the estate.