Our Provenance Guarantee
Purchase with confidence. All of our wines are selectively sourced and thoroughly inspected for authenticity and signs of poor storage. Accepted bottles are preserved in our climate-controlled cellar until they reach your doorstep. We have no storefront and no walk-in traffic, so nothing is moved or handled between inspection and shipping.
The bottle you see photographed is the bottle you receive (or fundamentally identical when multiple bottles are listed), and our commitment to you is that it arrives as represented. If it doesn’t, we want to hear from you.
Ratings & Tasting Notes:
95.5 points — CellarTracker community average, 6 user reviews
A member tasting it in December 2025 scored it 98 points, finding it fruity but less so than the cheaper Caymus bottlings, with green and black pepper, autumn leaves and leather.
A New Year’s Eve note scored it 95 points, describing a beautiful deep colour and an intense nose of blackcurrant and dark cherry with fine hints of vanilla, cedar and a light meaty note. Rich on the palate with ripe, silky tannins, full-bodied, with the acidity finding balance against the high alcohol.
A June 2026 note calls it complex with a long finish — dark fruit, chocolate and vanilla — and exceptional.
A September 2026 note, unscored, describes a very dark wine with a rich primary nose of sweet black and black raspberry jams, baking spices and cigar box, very rich and full-bodied with a surprising amount of powdery tannin, and night and day compared with the regular Caymus Napa Cabernet. The taster found it impressive but ultimately not to his own preference.
Cult Wines International Notes:
Caymus Vineyards was founded in Rutherford in 1972 by Charlie Wagner and his family, whose roots in Napa Valley reach back to the nineteenth century. The winery built its reputation on a style that is unmistakable and unapologetic — dark, rich, plush and approachable young — achieved in large part through extended hang time, leaving fruit on the vine far longer than most growers dare in order to deepen colour, soften tannin and build texture. Special Selection is the flagship: each year the winemaking team sets aside the finest barrels from the Napa Valley Cabernet programme to compose it, and it remains the only wine ever named Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year twice, for the 1984 and 1990 vintages.
The 2020 draws on valley-floor and benchland sites across Napa Valley. It is very dark in the glass, with a rich nose of blackcurrant, dark cherry, black raspberry jam and crème de cassis joined by baking spice, cigar box, vanilla, cedar, black liquorice and anise, with autumn leaves, leather and a light savoury note emerging. The palate is full-bodied and opulent, its powdery, fine-grained tannins and ripe fruit carrying a long, layered finish of dark chocolate and warm spice. Those who have opened it describe a wine clearly set apart from the standard Caymus bottling, with more pepper and structure beneath the richness. This is the house style at its fullest expression, built to give pleasure now while holding a decade or more.
Bottle Size:
750 mL
Storage History:
Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.
Condition:
Outstanding condition.
Please note: The condition of the bottle you will receive is accurately reflected by the one shown in the images.
