The Cabernet That Needs No Introduction

Named among Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of the Year — not once, but over 54 years of unbroken vintages

Wine Spectator's Top 100 is the most closely watched list in the wine world — and Caymus has earned its place on it multiple times, over 54 years of continuous winemaking, with vintage after vintage meeting the same extraordinary standard. Not because of a single remarkable year. Because a family that has farmed this land since the 1880s simply refuses to produce anything less than their very best — and 54 years of critical recognition is the documented proof of that refusal. That kind of consistency cannot be manufactured. It can only be grown, barrel by barrel, season by season, by people who genuinely have nowhere else they would rather be.

Double gold medals. Best-in-class distinctions. A permanent presence in the cellars and on the tables of the world's finest restaurants. Critics return to Caymus because it rewards them. Collectors seek it because it holds. And those who discover it for the first time understand immediately why it has commanded this position for 54 years running — because what is in the glass makes every argument for itself, without needing anyone to make it on its behalf.

Origin & History

Est. 1972 · Rutherford, Napa Valley, California

Roots Run Deeper Than the Vine.

Three generations. One valley. A family story rooted in Napa long before Napa was famous

The Wagner family didn't arrive in Napa Valley chasing a wine boom. They were already there. Since the 1880s, generations of the family had farmed, homesteaded and built their lives into the same soil that would one day produce some of the most celebrated Cabernet Sauvignon on earth. By 1972, when Charlie and Lorna Wagner and their nineteen-year-old son Chuck officially opened Caymus Vineyards in Rutherford with just 240 cases, they were not starting something new. They were honouring something old — a family relationship with this particular stretch of Napa Valley that no other winery can claim.

Chuck described his years working alongside his parents as "the precious history of my life." Today, his children Charlie and Jenny carry the same craft forward — farming the same land, making the same commitment, and building on a foundation that three generations have already proven will hold. Caymus has never been sold. Never been acquired. Never been anything other than exactly what it started as — a family winery, on family land, making wine the family way.

The Land — Rutherford Terroir

Rutherford · Napa Valley · The Heart of California Cabernet

There Is No Substitute for the Right Piece of Earth.

Why Rutherford produces Cabernet Sauvignon that no other place on earth can replicate

Rutherford sits at the very heart of Napa Valley — and within it, Caymus sits at the very heart of Rutherford. This is not a coincidence the Wagners stumbled into. It is the result of four generations choosing to stay in a place they understood, farming soil they had learned at the level that only time and devotion can teach. The Rutherford bench is defined by its deep, well-drained alluvial soils — gravelly loam over volcanic subsoil — that drain quickly after rain, concentrate heat during the day and release it gently through cool nights. The result is a growing environment of rare precision: long, warm growing seasons that ripen Cabernet fully, without the heat stress that produces jammy, overblown fruit.

Caymus farms both the valley floor and the surrounding mountain soils, selecting low-fertility ground that forces the vine to reach deep, produce less and deliver more. High-density planting — some blocks as close as metre by metre — limits each vine's yield and pushes every cluster toward greater intensity. This is the ground that gives Caymus Cabernet its particular character: dark, concentrated, rich with ripe fruit — and yet structured, complete and built to age. Rutherford made it possible. The Wagners made it exceptional.

A Gift Worth Giving

Good Company · Great Food · Delicious Wine

Some Wines Are Opened. This One Is Remembered.

The bottle that makes every occasion feel like it was worth celebrating

The Wagners have always believed that wine exists for one reason — to bring people together around something worth sharing. That warmth is present in every bottle of Caymus: in the generosity of the fruit, the softness of the finish, the way a glass of it turns a meal into a memory. A bottle of Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is the gift for the dinner table that deserves a wine worthy of the company around it. Caymus Special Selection is the gift for the moment that demands the very finest bottle in the room — a birthday that marks a decade, a retirement that closes a brilliant chapter, a thank-you that needs to say more than any card can.

Whatever the occasion, whatever the person, Caymus arrives with something no other Napa bottle quite carries — a century of family roots in the same valley soil, fifty years of critical recognition and the warm, generous character of a wine made by people who genuinely love what they do. That is what the recipient feels when they open it. And that is why they never forget who gave it to them.