Napa Valley
Winemaker Notes
The wine sits in the glass with a dark mauve and crimson red rim. Classic and traditional Left Bank Bordeaux-style nose of ripe cassis, blackberry and assorted blue fruits with a touch of chapparal. The entry is robust with notes of blackberry pie, black cherry, and impressive weight. Soft tannins and a bright finish round out the wine with a lingering touch of orange peel.
About Orin Swift
The history of Orin Swift Cellars dates back to 1995 when on a lark, David Swift Phinney took a friend up on an offer and went to Florence, Italy to spend a semester “studying”. During that time, he was introduced to wine, how it was made, and got hooked. A few more years of university led to graduation and eventually a job at Robert Mondavi Winery in 1997 as a temporary harvest worker. Deciding that if he was going to work this hard, it would eventually have to be for himself, he founded Orin Swift Cellars in 1998; Orin is his father’s middle name and Swift is his mother’s maiden name. With two tons of zinfandel and not much else, he spent the next decade making wine for others as well as himself and grew the brand to what it is today.
About the Palermo Label
This label features a photo of mummified 16th-century Cardinal in Palermo, Italy. The photo’s sense of power, reverence and dignity is reflective of how their winemaker crafts Cabernet.
Phinney’s most haunting label, which graces bottles of his Napa Valley red blend Palermo, is a chilling photo of a mummified priest wearing a red cape and a black hat known as a ‘biretta’, taken by National Geographic photographer Vincent J. Musi in a 16th century catacomb in Palermo, Sicily, after which the wine is named.
The arresting image is one of a series taken by Musi for National Geographic and reflects Phinney’s reverence for Cabernet Sauvignon. “There is such a sense of power and dignity to the image, which is how we think about great Cabernet. We just really respect it. It think it makes a statement about the wine,” says Phinney.
Palermo is made from Cabernet, Merlot and Malbec from Rutherford, Saint Helena, Atlas Peak and Coombsville. Using fruit that also goes into Phinney’s top reds, Mercury Head and Papillon, Phinney describes it as his most approachable Cabernet”, and “a true representation of Napa”.
