100 Points Again. The Most Legendary First-Growth of Spring Mountain.
Lowest Price in California.

Dear Artisans,

Critics and Collectors have called Togni the Château Margaux of Spring Mountain for years, and they are not going to stop. Togni is one of the greatest Cabernets made on the planet that "fortunately" keeps a very low profile. Most of the 900 cases made are sold to their members. Their prices have barely shifted in decades.

Philip Togni is about to turn 100 this October and is STILL making wine. He arrived in Napa Valley in the late 1950s and began a career spanning 72 vintages and still going. Before establishing his own Spring Mountain estate, he was the winemaker behind the 1959 Mayacamas and the legendary 1969 Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon — which received 100 points from Robert Parker and is widely regarded as one of the greatest California Cabernets ever produced.

In 2020, Philip Togni released nothing at all. The Glass Fire came through Spring Mountain, the fruit carried smoke, and the family chose to skip the vintage rather than put their name on something short of standard. Forty years of an unbroken run — and they stopped it on purpose.

Then the 2021 arrived. Antonio Galloni made it the number one wine in the world on the first Vinous Top 100 ever published — ahead of Giaconda and Pichon Lalande. Decanter gave it a hundred points. The Wine Advocate called it possibly the best wine made at this address since 1991.

Now the 2023, and two critics have given it a perfect score.

Joe Czerwinski of the Wine Advocate went to one hundred: “One of the top vintages I have had the privilege to taste… concentrated, rich and dense yet never heavy or overdone.” John Gilman of View From The Cellar went to one hundred as well and closed his note in six words: “a simply perfect young cabernet sauvignon.” Galloni and James Suckling both landed on ninety-eight, Wine Spectator on ninety-six. Five reviews, and not one of them below ninety-six.

Two details from those notes are worth pulling out. Galloni reports that a poor set cut yields by about a quarter, which is why he calls the 2023 “unusually potent” for this address. And Gilman notes that the alcohol is not printed on the label, as it never is here, then bets it comes in under thirteen and a half percent. That combination, low alcohol and high concentration, is the whole argument for mountain fruit.

Czerwinski’s line on the 2021 was that it is “possibly the best wine produced here since the terrific 2001 or 1991.” Last year I opened a 2001 Togni. It went straight into the five greatest wines I have drunk in my life, and I have been doing this a long time. Twenty-four years old — and it had not started coming down. It was still climbing.

Here is the scale of the thing. The estate is ten and a half acres in twenty blocks near the top of Spring Mountain at two thousand feet, and it produces roughly two thousand cases a year across both labels. Everything is co-planted and co-fermented — the way it was done before anyone talked about clonal selection. There is no reserve tier, no single-block bottling, no second winery.

Our allocation of the 2023 is twenty-four bottles. That is not a scarcity tactic — it is the number on the invoice.

So many 100 point scores.
And, in October, 100 years young.

Lisa and Philip Togni in the cellar, a few feet from the vines the wine came off

His first Napa harvest was at Mayacamas in 1959. Before that he trained in Bordeaux under Émile Peynaud, one of five students in the first Diplôme National d’Oenologie class, and worked at Château Lascombes in Margaux. He was the founding winemaker at Chalone, then at Chappellet — where he made the 1969 Cabernet the Wine Advocate later scored one hundred points. He planted Spring Mountain in 1981 and made his first wine from it in 1983. His daughter Lisa runs the cellar now and has changed nothing, which is the highest compliment available.

Sixty-seven years after that first harvest, on a vineyard he planted himself in his mid-fifties, Philip Togni has just been handed two perfect scores. In October he turns one hundred. He is still going, and so are his wines.

Two vintages, five wines.
Tap any one to order.

The 2023s.
Arriving in two weeks.

Philip Togni Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon Estate 2023

Five reviews, and two of them are perfect. One hundred from the Wine Advocate, one hundred from John Gilman, ninety-eight from Vinous, ninety-eight from James Suckling, ninety-six from Wine Spectator. Not one of the five is below ninety-six.

They describe the same wine in the same order: it opens quietly, then builds. Czerwinski uses the word “crescendo.” Galloni says the aromatics emerge “with great reluctance.” That slow start is the Togni signature — and it is why these bottles are still climbing at twenty and thirty years old while flashier Napa Cabernets from the same vintage have gone quiet.

Note the drinking windows, because they agree with each other. The Wine Advocate says 2030 to 2050. Wine Spectator says 2030 through 2050. Galloni says 2033 to 2053. Nobody thinks you should open this before 2030, and everybody thinks it will still be worth opening in 2050.

That is the useful thing to understand about Togni. These wines will go fifty years and more if you let them, but you do not have to wait fifty years. Four more and this one is ready. The half-century is available to you if you want it — not a condition of buying the bottle.

Our Allocation Is Only 24 Bottles · Arriving In Two Weeks

Philip Togni
"Tanbark Hill Vineyard" Cabernet 2023

Tanbark Hill is not a declassified afterthought. It comes off a three-acre block of the same estate with slightly richer soil, it spends the same twenty months in the same forty percent new French oak, and then barrels headed for the Estate wine get moved across if they are showing more generously. It is the same cellar making the same decision Bordeaux makes every year.

Galloni was unusually direct about this one: “quite simply one of the finest Tanbark Hills I can remember tasting.” At ninety-nine ninety-nine it is the cheapest door into this estate that exists.

Arriving With The 2023 Allocation

The number one wine
in the world.

Seven bottles, four magnums and three Tanbark Hills. One thousand and twenty cases were made for the entire world, and this is the end of ours.

Vinous Top 100 Wines of 2024, published November 2024. The inaugural edition of the list, and Philip Togni took the top spot.

Philip Togni Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon Estate 2021

The wine Galloni put at number one on the first Vinous Top 100. A hundred points from Decanter, ninety-nine from Vinous, ninety-eight-plus from the Wine Advocate, ninety-seven-plus from The Wine Independent, ninety-six from Wine Spectator. One thousand and twenty cases were made for the whole world.

Czerwinski’s line on it is the one that stays with me: “Possibly the best wine produced here since the terrific 2001 or 1991.” Galloni’s window runs to 2051. We have seven bottles and there is no reorder.

Only 7 Bottles Left

Philip Togni Vineyard Cabernet 2021
Magnum, 1.5 Litres

The number one wine in the world, in the format it was built for. Galloni’s window on the 2021 opens in 2031 and runs to 2051, and a magnum will comfortably outlive that. If you have a child born in 2021, this is the bottle.

Four of these exist here and none are coming back. When they go, the 2021 is finished at this shop in every format.

Only 4 Magnums Left

Philip Togni
"Tanbark Hill Vineyard" Cabernet 2021

The same vintage Vinous crowned, one label down, at a fifth of the price. Galloni noted that the 2021 Tanbark got “some excess fruit that would have been used in the main label” and said outright that in this vintage it “gives a very good idea of the quality and style of the Grand Vin.”

Ninety-five from Decanter with a window that runs to 2060. Six hundred and ten cases made. Three bottles left here.

Only 3 Bottles Left

Ten and a half acres,
and two perfect scores.

Twenty-four bottles of the 2023 Estate, arriving in about two weeks. We are taking orders now and they ship the day they land. The Tanbark Hill 2023 comes in with them, and at ninety-nine ninety-nine it is the cheapest way anyone will ever get into this cellar: same vineyard, same barrels, same twenty months in forty percent new oak, chosen for drinking sooner.

What is left of the 2021 is genuinely what is left. Seven bottles, four magnums and three Tanbark Hills. — the number one wine in the world from a ten-acre vineyard does not come back.

If you buy one thing on this page, buy the 2023 Estate and forget you own it until 2030. If you buy two, make the second one a magnum of the 2021.

Cheers and all my best,

— James Tran

24 Bottles Allocated · Arriving In Two Weeks · $226.99

Call 650-917-8080, text 650-880-3553, email sales@artisan.wine, or chat with us