The Kraken and Godzilla. King Kong. And… MORGADO!!

This wine just seems like it should be included in that pantheon of supernatural entities because it’s massive in stature, powerful and hulking compared to its peers.

The one obvious difference? This is very real.

Very much here in front of you. Very much deserving of the 96 points from Dunnuck, and 95+ from Advocate. A pleasure bomb, built to thrill and if you’ve had these wines before, you already know the deal.

And our price is absolutely, certifiably not a figment of your imagination. HALF OFF, down to $55 for this caliber wine?!

Proprietor Kimberly Hatcher is a force of her own. The San Francisco firefighter-turned-winemaker comes from the Russel Bevan school of winemaking perfection. After all, it’s still made at Elyse under Bevan’s watchful eye. The protege learned more than a few tricks from the Master, and she turns them all loose in this wine. It almost seems the apprentice has now become a Master.

Leaning into the Bevan connection offers some prime fruit sources. Sugarloaf Vineyard is one of his favorite locations, along with a select few other top names like Argot, Chappellet, PerUs, Rudius, Purlieu, and Venge. It’s a rugged pile of rocks in Southern Napa. As an interesting fact in this video:

Bevan points out how they thin the foliage around the Cab Franc clusters early in the season. This allows the sun to hit the grapes immediately and helps curb some of that vegetal pyrazine character that can sometimes dominate Cab Franc. The result is fruit with more of the ‘noble qualities’ like blueberry, tobacco, and sweet flowers rather than bell pepper. The more you know!!

This combines that Cab Franc with juicy Merlot and the resulting wine pushes boundaries harder than my three-year-old son. Described as having “German Chocolate cake (with a Bing cherry glaze). Heritage leather, bay leaf, and pipe tobacco wrap around a core of sundried cherries, persimmon, and end of season plum” on their own website. Chalky tannins, toasty sweet oak (100% new), and stony minerality firm up the complexity. It all adds up to an incredibly satisfying, hedonistic treat.

Of course, our price is also immensely satisfying at HALF OFF what’s out there, if any escaped the mailing list raid that sells these out. You can pay a lot more for a wine and get a lot less… but you can’t pay much less to get more. Bet on that.

96 Points - Jeb Dunnuck

“Lots of red, black, and blue fruits as well as notes of iron, bouquet garni, and chocolate emerge from the 2018 Red Wine Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard. Medium to full-bodied, it has a ripe yet balanced, concentrated mouthfeel, ripe tannins, and beautiful length on the finish. As with all the wines from Morgado, it brings loads of pleasure and is already a joy to drink.”

95+ Points – Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

“A blend of 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Franc, the 2018 Sugarloaf Mountain Proprietary Red has a deep garnet-purple color, offering up a stunning perfume of black cherries, black raspberries and mulberries with hints of roses, fragrant earth and pencil shavings plus a touch of lavender. The full-bodied palate is rich, velvety and multi-layered, delivering impressive energy with a fantastically fragrant finish. This wine was aged for 22 months in 100% new French oak. It has an alcohol of 15.9%. 250 cases were made. Drink 2023-2042.”