More about Dalla Valle

Dalla Valle is one of the original Napa cult estates, a hillside site in Oakville whose Maya, a near-even blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, became one of California's most coveted wines in the early 1990s.

Gustav Dalla Valle, an Italian-born diving-equipment entrepreneur, and his wife Naoko found this rocky plateau on Oakville's eastern hillsides in the early 1980s, drawn by its volcanic, iron-rich red soils. In 1987, the year their daughter Maya was born, they planted a five-acre block of Cabernet in her honor; it became Maya's Vineyard and gave the flagship wine its name. Gustav died in 1995, and Naoko has led the estate since, now in partnership with Maya, who trained in enology at Cornell and in Bordeaux and became director in 2017.

The vineyard is small, a couple dozen acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and a little Petit Verdot, farmed organically since 2007, with yields kept low. Maya Dalla Valle now makes the wines, with Andy Erickson as consulting winemaker. Alongside Maya and the estate Cabernet, the family also makes DVO, a Napa red made in partnership with Tuscany's Ornellaia since the 2018 vintage. Expect dense, structured, long-lived reds that need years in the cellar to show their best.