Luc Morlet is one of the most academically rigorous and recognisably French winemakers working in California today. Born in Avenay-Val d’Or in Champagne to a fifth-generation winemaking family, he trained in viticulture and winemaking and worked across Burgundy, Bordeaux and the south of France before arriving in California in 1996. His long tenure at Peter Michael Winery, where he achieved multiple perfect scores from Robert Parker, preceded the establishment of his own Morlet Family Vineyards label in 2006. Parker has described Morlet as producing “rockstar wines,” a sentiment echoed across the critical spectrum.

The Morlet Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is produced from the family’s own hillside estate vineyard in St. Helena, situated at 1,100 to 1,200 feet elevation on rhyolitic loam and volcanic ash soils. This mountainous site delivers a Cabernet of notable mineral precision and structure, incorporating both bench and foothill fruit to create a harmonious blend of plushness and austerity. The 2015 vintage, regarded as one of the finest in Napa Valley in the modern era, produced wines of exceptional concentration and longevity, and Luc Morlet’s estate expression was described as “more masculine, backward and austere” with “a Chateau Latour-like character.”

Morlet Family Vineyards operates primarily through a mailing list with an intensely loyal customer base, and the wines appear on the menus of America’s most prestigious restaurants, including during White House State Dinners. The estate has accumulated an extraordinary number of perfect and near-perfect scores from critics including Robert Parker and Lisa Perrotti-Brown, principally for the Passionement and Force de la Nature bottlings. The Morlet Estate Cabernet, the most structured and age-worthy in the portfolio, is built in the image of a great Bordeaux left bank wine and requires significant time in bottle to reveal its full character.