For the second year in a row, abundant winter rains set us up with excellent soil moisture for a promising 2024 growing season. We experienced some unusually early heat spikes in June and July, but for the most part the season was similar to 2023—until the heat clicked on in early October. It’s not unusual to get a few hot days around that time, but in 2024 the temperature held at over 100 degrees for the better part of a week. That put harvest into overdrive. Valley floor or hillside site didn’t matter; we had the Pulido~Walker fruit off the vine by the end of the first week of October.
The happy ending to the heat story is that, as long as the canopy wasn’t too exposed, we saw some natural shrinkage in the berries that gives the finished wine an extra layer of concentration. The 2024 Pulido~Walker Melanson Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon was nudged into high gear by the extraordinary weather conditions.
Across the board, the 2024 Pulido~Walker wines are showing great singular site expression; both site and varietal shine above the general attributes of the vintage. In the Melanson Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, this manifests as quintessential mountain wine in structure and character, with next-level polish and elegance. Vine maturity in the blocks we draw from is excellent. Although almost no two vines are the same, so we farm plant by plant instead of block by block. This exacting attention to detail yields fruit that always leaves us wanting more.
Winemaking & Tasting Notes
Year after year, the quality of the Pulido~Walker Melanson Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is a testament to just how sublime this Pritchard Hill site is. The 2024 vintage is pure black-fruited and brooding. It has plenty of tannin, but that tannin is pleasingly sweet. Clone 7 brings the black fruit and an iron-like quality balanced by spring flowers. Clone 337 is a mix of red and black fruit—very fresh and juicy. As we’ve come to expect, the wine has great depth and complexity, and a superb balance of muscularity and elegance.
We always recommend cellaring the Pulido~Walker Melanson Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, as it should begin to show tertiary characteristics after a decade of aging. Given the limited quantity of the 2024 vintage and what a stellar companion it is to 2023 (and how promising the 2025 looks to be), we’re seeing the makings of a once-in-a-generation flight of Pritchard Hill wines.
Thomas Rivers Brown, Winemaker
Data
Estate Grown
Varietal: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Clones: 7 and 337
Aging: 20 months in 100% French oak (100% new barrels)
Barrel Coopers: Darnajou, Remond, and Taransaud
Alcohol: 14.6% by vol.
Titratable Acidity: 5.8 g/L
pH: 3.90
Bottling Date: June 2026
Production: 137 Cases
Site
Appellation: St. Helena, Napa Valley
Acreage: 10.5 acres on Pritchard Hill, adjacent to Colgin Estate
Elevation: 1,100–1,350 ft.
Soil Composition: Fractured serpentine and clay with igneous and seabed rock
