Napa Valley Cabernet 2021: Full report and buyer's guide to the vintage's finest wines

Having tasted over 500 wines, Jonathan Cristaldi delivers his summary and buying advice for the Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 releases. Drought conditions, light winter rains, and a cool spring set the stage for one of the best growing seasons in the last 25 years.

After a delayed bud break, near-perfect conditions persisted throughout Napa Valley, and harvest came on the early side, delivering positively gorgeous wines that are concentrated, layered, and framed by ripe, sleek, and densely packed, super-fine tannins, with loads of savoury qualities and vivid minerality.

Rudd Estate’s Natalie Bath. Credit: Rudd Estate

Napa Cabernet 2021 vintage rating: 5/5

Authenticity, complexity, density and power are the hallmark traits of the 2021 Napa Cabernet wines. Savoury-packed and mineral-rich with ample mid-palate concentration and densely layered red and black-fruited profiles, wines are framed by compact tannins that etch themselves onto the palate with a fine, pinpoint granularity. They are unquestionably age-worthy wines.

The low-yielding 2021 crop of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in Napa Valley delivered bewildering wines of authenticity, total intrigue, bordering on the flirtatious, with captivating complexity and staying power designed to build impressionable nuance over long-term cellaring.

So, if you stopped reading this report right here and set about buying up as many bottles as you can find, you’ll be thanking us in the years to come. But read on to understand why this is such a terrific year.