A Memorable Visit to FUTO Estate: Napa's Hidden Gem
Wine Club Miami's Shawn Zylberberg takes a look at this special Cabernet estate
Some of the world’s best and purest Cabernet Sauvignons can be found in the foothills of Oakville. FUTO Estate is wedged into its quiet forests and is now Napa’s best kept wine secret.
Over the course of two decades, the winery has made a stealthy rise to become one of the most desired Cabernets in the world. The most riveting part? You may not have heard of it, making FUTO the ‘cult of the cults’ in the small sect of Napa’s Cabernet elite.
As I took in the fresh breeze and silence emanating from the property, I spent some time walking the perimeter of a vineyard block right by the front door of the eponymous winery founded by Tom Futo. The vines were dormant (as expected in January in Napa), but they were the most manicured and detailed I had ever seen. Not a stitch out of place.
“I always thought that if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right,” Tom says as we walked up the steep slope of a vineyard where winemaker Jason Exposto and his team source the Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc for the portfolio. Napa legend and viticulture expert David Abreu planted these very vines and carefully selected clones decades ago alongside then-winemaker Mark Aubert.
On the top of that same hill, you can see Harlan Estate and Promontory just a stone’s throw away, and before that, FUTO’s other vineyard blocks that are numbered and just as easily identified through natural barriers to the eye.
The estate is a literal blueprint of a wine collector’s dream. Vineyards with varying aspects compete for ‘most unique’ in the home of the world’s most sought-after Cabernet Sauvignons.
Since 2002, when FUTO Estate was founded, the winery has focused on making some of the world’s top Cabernet Sauvignons. “I want to make the wines that I would drink,” Tom adds as we get back into the car following the brief vineyard tour and make our way through the hills and back to the winery. A lengthy allocation wait list and calculated distribution in 10 markets is enough proof to show that the quality has penetrated the cellars of the world’s most scrupulous collectors. But the hunger to improve, adapt and offer FUTO’s members an unforgettable experience has kept the team’s ears close to the ground.
Tom tapped Jason Exposto as winemaker in November of 2009 following a year as assistant to Mark Aubert. The New Zealand native got started in his home country, but later moved to Bordeaux to study under Stephane Derenoncourt and his consulting firm which makes wine and tackles issues for Bordeaux’s biggest names. Brushing shoulders with homegrown talents such as Petrus winemaker Olivier Berrouet gave Jason a leg up on how to craft serious wine. Now in California working with one of Napa’s most revered properties, Jason has made a name for himself by finding a common language with each vineyard and knowing what to capture and when.
Expanding is not an option. Tom and the team prefer not moving past its 28 planted acres, 14 of which are in Stags Leap appellation where FUTO 5500 ($600 SRP) is sourced, while the other 14 are at the Oakville estate and house the Cabernets that go into FUTO Oakville ($600 SRP). That leaves 170 acres unplanted. The reason? It lets Futo do it the FUTO way.
By sticking with the current planted acreage, Jason can pick row by row, day by day, in a controlled manner. When a winery expands, it now has more vines to deal with and varying phenolic ripeness levels that are impossible to track at the same level of detail. Do you still get great wine? Sure. Is it the best? Probably not. And that’s why there’s a long wait list for FUTO. While the estate might have hundreds of cellars eager for more of their wines, the faucet will not pour one ounce more than the current vines will give.
Inside the Howard Backen-designed winery, one would think the place was built yesterday. The tank-filled winery is cleaner than a dentist’s unopened toolkit. Any microscopic bacterial organism that was lucky enough to find its way here would die from loneliness. Jason is the only person authorized to walk the smooth cement floors during harvest, a testament to the care taken during fermentation.
All of FUTO’s wines are made with free run juice. This means that none of the wines are made from pressed juice, which often contributes harsher tannins. To put this into perspective, imagine a bunch of grapes sitting in a stainless steel tank and the only juice coming out is from the sheer weight of the grapes on top of each other. The rest of the juice you could get from pressing the grapes further is not used. Call it gravity juice. You won’t find that in almost any other winery in the world. On top of that, Jason incorporates a fool-proof crop thinning program (aka dropping grape clusters to enhance concentration and flavor on the vine). Lastly, very gentle pump overs are utilized during fermentation, no manual punch downs on the cap of the grapes. This is a perfect example of ‘letting the wine do the work’, which would make many other winemakers lose their minds… or even their jobs.
What do you get in the end? A key that doesn’t fit in any other door in the world.
Following the tank room, we moved into the FUTO library. A square room with high ceilings, this cellar houses the estate’s wines since the first 2004 vintage. It wraps in a ‘U’ and shows the addition of new wines over the years, such as FUTO Blanc, a 100 percent Sauvignon Blanc sourced from the Stags Leap estate vineyard and made in miniscule quantities. It is a perfect example of Jason’s bold yet calculated decision-making. The soil profile is a good match for Cabernet Sauvignon, but Jason had a vision that this piece of land could make a white of FUTO caliber. So he took 1.2 acres and planted Sauvignon Blanc (which is genetically related to Cabernet Sauvignon) that eventually went into the inaugural 2018 vintage. The result? It is now one of the few if only Napa whites that the fine wine auction market salivates over.
“Does it age?” I ask.
The answers were laid before me. Jason finds natural acidity in these wines and a balance that lends itself to structural integrity for the long haul. Everything is made to age, but also meant to enjoy now if desired. Tightness is rarely an issue in these young wines. As we continue to gloss over the beautiful labels, the team highlights the 2014, an overlooked vintage among critics, that is currently in top form.
Toward the end of the visit, Jason, Tom, and team member Mai Ozasa and I sat together to taste SETA Red 2022 ($250 SRP) and FUTO Oakville 2022. SETA is one of the estate’s newer, introductory offerings. It is a blend of grapes from both estates in Stags Leap and Oakville AVAs, primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. SETA also has a Sauvignon Blanc ($150 SRP) counterpart.
Both the SETA and FUTO Oakville were marked by two things: Tannin and Finish. Putting price points aside, both wines are made of the same exceptional quality, but the portrait is the differentiator. SETA is a greater snapshot of Oakville and Stags Leap while FUTO Oakville is a microscopic focus on the Cabernet site. You can taste the large brush strokes of SETA and the granular particles of the Oakville.
“Our goal is to capture the character and profile of our vineyards regardless of vintage,” says Jason Exposto. I had completely forgotten about vintage when tasting. For the team, that is secondary to getting a 20/20 shot of the site’s characteristics. The year is simply a number to order the bottles from left to right.
The SETA was marked by horizontal layers of dark fruit on the palate with a chainlink texture of firm tannins that seemed to melt yet remain like a drained lake that reveals distinctive pebbles. The finish evaporated slowly with a lasting coolness on the finish. The Oakville on the other hand had a gravitational feel with its vertical layers of red fruits. Like a gold-medal gymnast on the beam, the wine had immense confidence in its identity and showed a masterful lesson in balance. It had more granular, elegant tannins and a long finish that ticked the final box of a wine done well. While all components were integrated from a technical perspective, there was something about Oakville that felt ‘untouched’ as if sailing through the Fjords of New Zealand wondering ‘has anyone ever stepped foot here?’
As Napa’s best kept secret, FUTO has yet to be discovered and enjoyed by many. Whether it will remain that way or not, it doesn’t matter.
FUTO Estate’s Tom Futo and Mai Osaza will be in Miami on February 27th & 28th, 2025 for James Sucklings’ Great Wines of the World Miami. Get your tickets!
Nice little article about one of Napa's great winemakers. Makes me want to drink some FUTO cab!