Alpha Omega
The Sunshine Lady
2021 Cabernet Sauvignon
Napa Valley
Auction 27 | Lot No. 2
Vintage: 2021
Alpha Omega
The Sunshine Lady
Cabernet Sauvignon
Napa Valley
5 cases produced
Highlights
- Your wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from the famed Sunshine Lady and Sleeping Lady vineyards
- 100% barrel fermented, showcasing the rich, textured style of Alpha Omega
- Aging in French oak barrels for 18 months, bottled unfined and unfiltered
- Winemakers Matt Brain and Andy Erickson chose barrels to highlight the best that 2021 had to offer
Description
Alpha Omega presents The Sunshine Lady 2021, created exclusively for Premiere Napa Valley. After its stunning debut last year, The Lady makes a curtain call in a magnificent new look for the 2021 vintage. The Sunshine Lady is a rare blend of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from two of Napa Valley's most prized vineyards, Oak Knoll District’s Sunshine Valley Vineyard and Yountville's Sleeping Lady Vineyard. This extraordinary wine deftly weaves together the depth and character of Sunshine Valley and the exciting extravagance of Sleeping Lady. We’ve had the distinct honor to work with both vineyards for more than a decade, and the insights we’ve gained about each vineyard provided us exceptional clarity when it came to blending them. After intuitively tasting through each 2021 barrel from these two vineyards, Alpha Omega winemaker Matt Brain selected one barrel from each vineyard to create this perfect marriage that represents our definition of greatness: complexity, ageability and sense of place. Our Premiere Napa Valley lot is 100% barrel fermented, unfined and unfiltered, aging 18 months in 100% French oak and destined to age for decades.
Wine Facts
- Wine is unfiltered
- Sustainably produced
- Wine is produced in a Napa Green winery
Matt Brain
Winemaker, Alpha Omega
Winemaker Matt Brain, possessing a master’s degree in biosciences and a background in process engineering, brings naturalist philosophies and highly technical abilities to winemaking at Alpha Omega where he began as Associate Winemaker. After leaving a successful career in the Toronto area to pursue his dream of winemaking in California, the Ontario, Canada native joined Phase 2 Cellars, a custom winemaking operation in San Luis Obispo, for the 2006 harvest. Matt was quickly promoted to supervise cellar operations for the facility’s premium label, Tolosa, while receiving mentorship from some of the most renowned and respected professionals in California.
Matt earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in biosciences at Sam Houston State University, where he was a scholarship decathlete. He also earned a winemaking degree from UC Davis and held winemaker titles at prominent California wineries and winemaker/lecturer positions with Enology and Viticulture programs at both Cal Poly and Fresno State universities. He partnered with The Vineyard Team, which promotes sustainable winegrowing, as a Sustainability Auditor and continues to educate as a Podcast Host for the organization. Matt’s passion for the environment benefits Alpha Omega, where the land and winery are both Napa Green certified and the Vineyard Management team practices sustainable farming.
Country born: Canada
Education: UC Davis Professional Winemaking Degree/Taught winemaking at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Fresno State
Years in the wine industry: 15-20 years
Winemaking Philosophy:
As a winemaker who believes that every vineyard block has a specific set of unique characteristics, Matt aims to identify those distinctive attributes and to express them in the glass as naturally as possible.
Andy Erickson
Winemaker, Alpha Omega
I have lived and worked in the Napa Valley since 1994. Since then I have worked hard to produce wines that truly represent the great terroir from which they come. My efforts have led me from early assignments at Spottswoode, Harlan Estate and Staglin Family Vineyard, to Screaming Eagle, Ovid, Dalla Valle and Mayacamas, among others.
I met Annie shortly after arriving in Napa Valley, and we connected immediately through a shared passion for where we lived, what we did and what we could do. We love growing things, creating, building, cooking, fermenting, preserving, and of course the results of all that activity.
Growing grapes and making wine has become the center of our daily work lives, bringing us to many incredible places and helping us forge great and meaningful friendships.
With our wine business, what started literally as a garage project has since bloomed into something sustainable, attracting a small but formidable team that has further strengthened our ability to grow and improve. Though our development continues, I'm happy it still feels like a family business, just with a growing family.
Country born: United States
Education: Tufts University, UC Davis
Years in the wine industry: 20-30 years
Winemaking Philosophy:
As a winemaker, my goal is to highlight the character of each of the unique vineyard sites with which I work, whether at my clients’ estate vineyards, or the vineyards that produce our own Favia wines.
Experiences gained from a summer in France during university, and many subsequent trips to winegrowing regions in Europe, have fueled my enthusiasm for the concept of "terroir" as well as for wines made from special places.
While I am fortunate enough to travel and work with wineries in other parts of the world, I feel incredibly lucky to call Napa Valley my home, and am constantly marveled by the diversity of soils and microclimates in this small but diverse valley.
2023 © Napa Valley Vintners All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Accessibility Statement