Cabernet Franc wine from one of the most famous vineyards in Napa Valley

The sun cast a warm glow on some of California’s finest vines, growing safely in the shelter of the Vaca and Mayacamas mountains in the historic Napa Valley wine region. Planted with grapes over 150 years ago, they eventually earned the name To Kalon, the Greek name for “supreme beauty.” This famous vineyard produces some of the world’s finest Cabernet Sauvignon wines, and a small portion is planted with Cabernet Franc, a parent variety of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. But as with all of the world’s greatest vineyards, not all plots are created equal, so different wine producers who are lucky enough to be allocated portions of the renowned To Kalon vineyard often prefer certain plots.

Alejandro Bulgheroni, an Argentinian businessman who has invested in producing fine wine of the highest quality over the past few decades, decided to create a winery in Napa Valley called Lithology. The name is aptly chosen, as it refers to the study of the physical properties of rock. Alejandro’s goal with this project is to express some of the best terroir (sense of place) in Napa by selecting ideal sections of the best vineyards. He brought on board viticultural consultants Philippe Melka and Michel Rolland, living legends with years of experience expressing the most outstanding, unique qualities of the best plots worldwide. And Philippe brought on board a relatively new winemaker named Matt Sands, whom he met a decade ago and who lives and breathes these soils.

The single vineyard wines produced by Lithology are a who’s who of Napa Valley’s dream parcels such as Beckstoffer Dr. Crane, Beckstoffer Las Piedras and Beckstoffer To Kalon. Vineyard owner Andy Beckstoffer not only owns some of the most valuable parcels, but also knows how to optimally manage them to produce the highest quality wines. And so having his name before the vineyard name lends more credibility to the quality of the terroir expression.

Excitingly, Lithology not only produces a Beckstoffer To Kalon Cabernet Sauvignon, but also a Beckstoffer To Kalon Cabernet Franc.

To the Kalon Winery

Of course, not everyone is offered sections of Beckstoffer’s To Kalon, because there is more at stake than just money. Beckstoffer’s impressive reputation rests on the fact that all the wines that carry his name on the label can distill the exquisite qualities of his enviable vineyards. Or, to put it another way, he has to make sure that a wine producer doesn’t spoil his precious grapes in the winery. It comes down to trust and relationships, and he can certainly trust two living legends he knows so well, Philippe Melka and Michel Rolland, and he can also trust that Philippe recognizes Matt Sands as a winemaker with great potential.

Matt is a very open winemaker who is hesitant to talk about things in the vineyards that are still unknown. Yet he has undoubtedly spent a lot of time walking these sites for nearly a decade and making wine there under the guidance of industry greats. He points out that the section they primarily source their wines from, the Beckstoffer section “in the heart” of To Kalon, has a “great balance of rock and earth” and that the fog in this Beckstoffer section comes earlier and disappears later in the day, so there are more cooling influences than what he has experienced in other areas. He also found year after year that in many of the sections they work with, the vines grow more slowly than the more vigorous vines around them. He was surprised that they consistently harvest their vines in To Kalon two to three weeks later than their vineyards in St. Helena.

Matt is continually impressed by the overall harmonious quality and depth of complexity of the wines he has made from Beckstoffer’s sections, as the grapes have much more time to ripen slowly on the vines, developing silky tannins, rich concentration with layered flavors.

In 2021, they worked in the To Kalon vineyard with eleven blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon and two blocks of Cabernet Franc. Over time, they moved over blocks and picked up others abandoned by other producers to finally gather the To Kalon plots that were right for them. Not that some are better than others, but they try to find complementary plots to produce wines that find that fine balance between elegance and power.

Referring to the 2021 Lithology Cabernet Franc from this incredible site, he spoke of allowing some of the herbal characteristics to come through, but underscoring them with the “fruitfulness” that To Kalon can bring out of this grape.

Undiscovered gem

When it comes to Matt’s wine journey, he’s as refreshingly honest as he is about the wines he makes. Originally from New Zealand’s Waiheke Island, he found his way to California via snowboarding. Although he received a fantastic education at the Eastern Institute of Technology, his real education was working for David Evans at Passage Rock Winery on Waiheke Island, a pioneer in Bordeaux blends and Syrah wines that has a small, loyal following of wine drinkers. Matt did every job in the vineyards and winery for four years, and he considers working at a small, fine wine producer his boot camp.

He decided to work in California in his spare time, since the Southern Hemisphere, where New Zealand is located, has an opposite growing season than California in the Northern Hemisphere, and he decided to send about 100 emails to various Napa producers. He had no contacts and hadn’t attended a world-renowned school like UC Davis. In addition, he was from an island with less than 10,000 inhabitants, so only ten people responded to his emails; seven said no. However, three made him offers to help with the harvest, and one of those was from the original cult wine Screaming Eagle, where he would eventually work, and the following year he spent a harvest at Bryant Family Vineyard. Bryant got 100 points from the Wine Advocate twice for his Cabernet Sauvignon and it was there that he met Philippe Melka.

Some things cannot be learned, they are simply innate in a person. Some people therefore theorize that rather than checking boxes of skills on a resume, making sure the person went to a certain school or is from a certain place, it is better to look for these qualities. Philippe saw something in Matt, and when Alejandro Bulgheroni’s Lithology project started in 2015, he recommended Matt as a full-time winemaker.

Lithology only makes a tiny amount of each single-vineyard bottling. The majority is sold directly from the winery. Still, they make around 1,600 cases of their Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon blend, which will be available in select retailers and restaurants. When asked if Lithology is still looking for other exceptional vineyards to make a more comprehensive selection of single-vineyard bottlings, Matt says they’re always looking for great sites. Still, it’s an “internal battle” as these vineyards have an extremely high bar to meet considering they have to be of the same stature as the exceptional ones that currently make up their single-vineyard selection. But they’re looking at the known and unknown sites, tasting and making wine from different parcels, and hoping to find the next superstar in line.

Ideally, it would be wonderful if they found an undiscovered gem. Just as Philippe Melka saw innate gifts in Matt despite his lack of superficial pedigree, the same could be true for a vineyard in Napa Valley that hasn’t received the love and attention it deserves; another iconic vineyard – another To Kalon – but with a different expression of terroir that has been overlooked all these years. It just takes the right people to find it, and maybe Philippe and Matt are the ones who will.

2021 Lithology, Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard, Cabernet Franc, Oakville, Napa Valley: 81% Cabernet Franc and 19% Cabernet Sauvignon. Gorgeous, fragrant aromas of blooming violets, sour cherries, fresh tree bark and a hint of smoldering cigar, all infused with an intense stony minerality with luscious raspberry liqueur aromas, balanced by an undertone of blackcurrant leaves with a very velvety texture reminiscent of large silky ribbons, caressing the palate with a delightfully long taste.