Every once in a while, a wine comes along with a story none of us could have planned.
This is one of those wines.
At Elkhorn Peak, we’re best known for Pinot Noir. My dad, Ken, planted our vineyard in 1983, and for more than forty years we’ve farmed this land at the southern end of Napa Valley. Today, we remain a small, estate-grown micro-winery producing about 800 cases a year, all sold directly to our customers.
But we also cultivate a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon and today, we have a very special bottle (and story) to share with you.
We’re calling it the 2023 Robin Hood Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, and its origin story will go down as one of the most memorable in our winery’s 40+ year history…
The 2023 growing season in Napa Valley was remarkable.
Even conditions. Long hang time. Beautifully balanced ripeness.
It’s the kind of year grape growers quietly hope for and one that winemakers get genuinely excited about. The Cabernet Sauvignon, in particular, was exceptional.
That year, we sold most of our Cabernet fruit to a high-end Napa Valley winery, known for producing wines that retail for $150+ per bottle and consistently earn mid- to high-90s scores from critics like James Suckling and Jeb Dunnuck. These are serious, cellar-worthy Cabernets, praised for their depth, structure, and ageability.
The wine was made under the direction of Kyle Mizuno, a protégé of Aaron Pott and a winemaker widely respected for his precision, restraint, and deep vineyard intuition.
Over the course of the season, Kyle became a genuine friend. He walked the vineyard with us regularly, and those afternoons were incredibly educational. We took a more collaborative approach to farming that year, leaning on his perspective as we moved closer to harvest. It gave us a deeper understanding of the decisions top Cabernet producers make in the vineyard—and we felt honored to be part of that process.
Then harvest came.
The fruit was pristine.
Delivery was seamless.
The wine was vinified and laid down in barrel.
And then… nothing.
Long story short, the owner skipped town. The winery foreclosed. We were among a handful of growers and vendors left unpaid, with no real recourse.
But then, a bit of luck.
The landlord continued paying the utilities, even after the foreclosure, and the barrel room stayed perfectly temperature-controlled at 55 degrees. The wines remained safe.
And then, another stroke of luck.
In the summer of 2025, we learned the contents of the winery were going up for auction. We convinced the landlord to let us in. Our barrels were still there, clearly marked. We charged up the forklift, loaded them onto our truck, and drove off with them in an afternoon that felt straight out of a Robin Hood story.
We sold most of the wine in bulk to help recover some of what we lost from the unpaid contract. But we kept one barrel, one we knew we wanted to bottle and share with our wine club members.
We’re calling it the Robin Hood Reserve, a nod to its improbable journey and to a moment when misfortune turned into something unexpectedly meaningful.
And the wine itself is absolutely beautiful.
On the nose, fragrant notes of ripe blueberry, violet, and a hint of crushed stone. On the palate, lively red fruit and dark cocoa, supported by soft, well-integrated tannins. The wine is unfiltered, preserving its texture and character.
Only one barrel was bottled in February 2026, making this one of the smallest, and most unusual, releases we’ve ever offered.
Just 20 cases are available, exclusively for our Wine Club members, on a first-come, first-served basis.
We’re proud to share it with you.
