Reviews
- James Suckling -
- Wine Spectator -
- Wine Enthusiast -
- Jeb Dunnuck -
- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate -
Technical Details
- 85% Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc
- David Jelinek
- US
- California
- North Coast
- Napa Valley
- 100% French oak, 45% of which is new. Sourced from Seguin Moreau, Taransaud and François Frères coopers.
- 20 Months
- 14.5%
- 50000
Faust Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021
26% OFF RETAIL!
Faust is in the house! A benchmark for quality and value in today’s saturated Napa cab marketplace, Faust rises above the competition at an incredibly reasonable price! This 2021 just might be the best vintage ever of this Coombsville-focused stalwart!
Faust’s first release was back in 2002, begun as a sort of side project by Chilean vintner, Augustin Huneeus. His parents founded the iconic Rutherford winery, Quintessa in the early 90s, and the joke goes that Jr. had to make a deal with the devil (some say that is Sr.) to get the green light on this new Coombsville brand. The Faust vineyard was originally an abandoned dairy farm in Coombsville, blessed with many of the same native flora and fauna that first attracted the family to what would become the Quintessa estate some years prior. They began planting cabernet sauvignon here – at a time when Coombsville was still widely regarded as being too cold for cabernet – and the rest is history.
Today, a duo of Jen Beloz and David Jelinek make the wines, and the brand has become a staple on fine restaurant lists across the country. The 2021 vintage is something you’ll probably tire of hearing about – one of the most remarkable vintages for Napa cab in the last hundred years, without question. The character of the vintage is the power and depth that nevertheless carry an intense brightness and finely integrated acidity that will allow these wines to stand up for decades. Faust is typically made in a modern, drink-young, restaurant-friendly style, and so...here you get the best of both! A 2021 Napa cab that is both showing well here and now, but with an extended ageability not often seen in these wines. Undoubtedly, that is one of the reasons the wine scored 95 points, not to mention being marked as the #4 wine of 2024 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list. Hefty praise, but this quintessentially classic Faustian bargain lives up to the hype – and is worth collecting in as large a quantity as you can, for as long as you can get it!
We got all we could, but any Top 10 wine from one of the big wine mags means you can bet there is a score of bounty hunters seeking this high and low – so grab some while we got ‘em!
PAIRING IDEAS: Give this a go with a classic Steak Diane. Tender and mild filet mignon, in a peppercorn cream sauce... delectable.