Where to start with Mayacamas Vineyards? How about with the words of Eric Asimov: “A legendary purveyor of classically structured, ageworthy Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.” Or perhaps Matt Kramer: “Really, you can’t do better than Mayacamas Vineyards for California wine profoundness.” Then, what about Antonio Galloni: “One of the most iconic estates of Napa Valley.” Or Jon Bonné, for that matter: “Mayacamas Vineyards is among the classic wineries that have made California wines among the world’s finest.”Purchased by farsighted visionary Bob Travers in 1968, Mayacamas Vineyards sits above the fog line at a lofty 700 metres on Mount Veeder. It’s a bucolic place where the mountain’s unique highland terroir delivers the most extended growing season and lowest natural yields of the Napa Valley. With a much cooler climate than the valley floor, this highland appellation delivers what many believe to be Napa’s most unique Cabernet. Accordingly, Mayacamas’s flagship Cabernet’s combination of aromatic power, exceptional structure and noted longevity bears little resemblance to the high-octane wines, with their bombast of fruit and oak, of the valley below. Indeed, Mayacamas regularly invites comparisons with First Growth Bordeaux. At the same time, the traditional winemaking (in concrete and century-old foudres) owes more to Piemonte than to the Napa cults. Travers eventually retired in 2013, selling Mayacamas to the Schottenstein family, whose team has doubled down to preserve the legacy and history of Travers’s vision. As a young wine, the Cabernet combines astonishing precision, purity and structure with a wild element unique to Mount Veeder Cabernet, once described by Gerald Asher as “a reminder of hedgerow briar rather than the cultivated berry patch”. As the wine ages, it picks up more leather, rose petals and forest floor but always retains its purity of dark berry fruit. It is no exaggeration to describe Mayacamas’s staying power as legendary. William Kelley recently noted that Travers’s 1975 “could still pass for a ten-year-old wine.”Just as Travers was buying Mayacamas from Jack and Mary Taylor, Bordeaux-trained Englishman Philip Togni took up the winemaking post at Chappellet in St. Helena. Togni’s time at Chappellet forged his reputation among the Napa elite. In his second vintage, he made a Cabernet Sauvignon that has become a legend in Napa circles. As Antonio Galloni wrote in 2014: “Philip Togni was just a young man when he made the 1969. He could have retired immediately and still left behind an incredible legacy.”By 1975, Togni and his wife Birgitta were able to purchase their own piece of land. To the surprise of many, they chose to plant on the eastern slope of the Mayacamas Range in Spring Mountain, Napa Valley’s coolest and wettest region. Togni had judged, correctly, that this terroir perched 600 metres above the fog line—where the elevation and cooler climate contribute to a longer growing season and slower ripening—would enable him to grow and make the kind of wines to rival the depth and complexity of his beloved Calon-Ségur.Togni’s savoury, perfumed and muscular Cabernets possess astonishing endurance. Yields are kept low and canopies are managed diligently to ensure full ripeness at low alcohols. The family pick early to preserve natural freshness and the grapes co-ferment to reinforce and heighten site expression. Togni’s daughter Lisa returned to work with her father in 2000, and together, they seek to emulate the longevity, rugged character and definition of Saint-Estèphe with a Spring Mountain stamp. The results speak for themselves.