Napanook 2016: The Bordeaux Rebel With A Napa Soul

Pull a chair up to the obsidian table, because we're not talking about just another Napa Cabernet today. We're talking about Napanook 2016, the "second wine" from the legendary Dominus Estate, which frankly, often drinks like the first. Christian Moueix, the man who runs the French-side show at Château Pétrus, came to Napa Valley's historic Napanook Vineyard with a vision of crafting a distinctly Bordeaux-style wine with a Napa accent. The Napanook bottling is the result of meticulously selected vineyard blocks that are designated for earlier maturity, livelier fruit, and softer tannins.

The 2016 vintage, a stone-cold classic in Napa, gave us a Napanook that is simultaneously a gentleman and a hell-raiser: elegant enough to impress your boss, yet so expressive you'll want to finish the whole bottle with a grease-stained takeout container. Forget the tight, unyielding wines that demand a decade of cellaring before they even speak a word; this one is talking right now. We'll deep-dive into the sensory experience, unpack the minimalist French winemaking ethos that makes this wine sing, and discuss why this bottle is the ultimate high-end value play for collectors who actually intend to drink their assets.

In The Glass: Lavender, Leather, and Pure Cabernet

Appearance

This wine pours a very deep purple-black—the color of liquid midnight velvet, still flashing a youthful violet wink at the rim. It is impeccably clear, hinting at the meticulous sorting and minimal intervention that define its creation. It sits dense in the glass, with slow, reluctant tears.

Nose / Aroma

The aromatic intensity is immediate and beguiling, a subtle yet pronounced bouquet that keeps drawing you back. It’s a beautiful perfume of violets, aniseed, truffles, and lavender that floats over a core of dark fruit—warm cassis, ripe plum, and blackberry preserves. Give it a minute, and you get the old-world complexity: a hint of cedar chest, savory earthiness, and a whisper of dark chocolate/cocoa nib from the gentle oak. It smells like an aristocratic English library with a garden right outside the door.

On The Palate: Precision Over Power

Taste & Texture

Bone-dry and medium-to-full-bodied, the palate confirms the nose's promise of purity. The acidity is bright and lively, like a perfectly tuned engine, giving the rich dark and blue fruit—boysenberry, dark raspberry, and black cherry—an exhilarating lift and movement. This isn't jam; this is precision.

The tannins are the real story here: firmly textured and very ripe, yet silky and fine-grained. They are present, but they don't assault your gums; they politely frame the fruit and loads of earthy sparks. It finishes with an amazing freshness and depth, leaving behind notes of graphite and a chalky, dusty character that screams Yountville terroir.

Finish

The finish is long and deep, echoing dark chocolate, dried tobacco, and a persistent minerality that makes you salivate and reach for another sip. It's a contemplative finish that reminds you this is a wine born of patience and restraint.

Behind The Curtain: Dry Farming and Minimalist French Wisdom

Terroir & Winemaking

The Napanook Vineyard is historic, located in Napa's Yountville appellation on gravelly and clay loam soil. Christian Moueix, the estate’s founder, brought his Bordeaux philosophy to this Californian soil. The result is a focus on dry farming—making the roots work deep for water—which concentrates the fruit and enhances the expression of the unique terroir.

The winemaking is all about minimal intervention, or as I like to call it, "don't screw up the grapes." There is thorough hand and optical sorting, gentle pump-overs, and a restrained use of new French oak—only 20% for Napanook 2016. This low-oak approach is the opposite of the high-octane Napa stereotype, ensuring the oak is a restrained and polite passenger rather than a backseat driver, letting the vineyard's personality shine.

Vintage Context

The 2016 vintage in Napa was abundant and largely seamless, with a warm, wet winter that built up soil water reserves, leading to healthy vine growth. A heat spike in July was mitigated by cooler temperatures and late morning fog in August, which slowed ripening. The September heat helped achieve consistent final ripeness. The result for Napanook is a wine defined by purity, elegance, and balance, showcasing the best of this great year.

Serving & Slapping It Next to Something Amazing

Serving Wisdom

Serve this in large Bordeaux stems at $60–64^{\circ}F$ ($16–18^{\circ}C$). If you are opening this now, you must decant it for a minimum of 45–60 minutes. The tannins are ripe, but they’re tightly knit and need air to relax and unfurl those beautiful tertiary notes. If you skip the decant, you're only getting half the story, and that’s a crime against both the god of wine and your palate.

Food Pairings

• Rare Beef and Truffles: The earthy, savory notes of the wine—cardamom, aniseed, and rare beef hints—are an obvious match for seared prime rib or rare beef tenderloin topped with black truffle shavings.
• Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb: The wine’s hints of lavender and cedar will lock arms perfectly with a rosemary-and-thyme crusted rack of lamb cooked medium-rare.
• Aged Comté or Montgomery's Cheddar: Skip the goat cheese. The firm, nutty complexity of a 24-month aged Comté or a quality clothbound cheddar will cut the wine's acidity and perfectly complement its savory earthiness and fine tannins.

Investment & Drinking: Drink Now or Hold (The Answer is Both)

Critic Scores & Collectibility

Napanook 2016 is a high-achiever, earning high-90s praise from various critics: 96 Points from James Suckling, 93 Points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 93 Points from Jeb Dunnuck, and 92 Points from Vinous. While Dominus itself is the 100-point magnet and flagship, Napanook offers incredible value and earlier accessibility. It’s a very limited production with only 3,500 cases produced, which ensures scarcity and a strong secondary market demand. It’s a blue-chip collectible that’s still reasonably priced compared to its Napa peers.

Aging Potential & Drinking Window

This wine is built to go the distance, a testament to the Napanook Vineyard's structure and the purity of the 2016 vintage.

• Optimal Drinking Window: Now through 2034.
• The ripe, finely grained tannins mean it’s delicious now with a decant, but its core of fruit and high acidity will allow it to evolve, shedding the youthful plum notes for mature, complex flavors of leather, tobacco, and dried mushroom over the next decade. If you’re not planning to drink it in the next 5 years, you’re missing out on its youthful exuberance; buy two.

Final Word From The Ivy-Crowned

This Napanook is the embodiment of controlled chaos: intense flavor meets Bordeaux poise. It's the wine you open to prove to your friends that Napa can do subtle, mineral-driven elegance, not just blockbuster fruit bombs. If you want a wine with pedigree, a narrative of French royalty meeting Californian grit, and a drinking window that doesn't make you feel like you'll die before the wine is ready—claim the 2016. Don't be the amateur who waits until the bottle is $100 more and the story is gone.