The Napa Valley Premiere, the storied California winemaking region’s annual trade auction, has no shortage of exclusive and elusive cuvees. Naturally, the bids are big. In 2024, 167 lots brought in over $3 million at the auction.
Surprisingly, the top lot of this year’s auction wasn’t a classic cult Cabernet or a marquee red blend—the bottles that usually send collectors into a frenzy. It was a newcomer’s very first vintage. The paddle price? $70,000 for five cases Fairest Creature 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon, an inky, expressive Cab sourced from grapes grown both high and low in the valley, then aged 19 months in new French oak—$1,166 a bottle.
To understand why those cases netted such a high result, look to how the wine was made.
When Fairest Creature owner Jayson Hu set out to produce a California Cab, he assembled an Avengers-esque panel of consultants to weigh in on the viticulture and oenology: Bordeaux-born Philippe Melka, known for Lithology and Lail’s richly structured and age-worthy reds; Lyon-bred winemaker Benoit Touquette, who specializes in California wines with a French accent; and Thomas Rivers Brown, a South Carolina kid turned Napa powerhouse who has a knack for making artful but hyper-precise wines. The three would each select vines and make a wine that reflects their personal style. Then they’d then hand it off to Michel Rolland, a renowned enologist, to blend it together.
These four are part of a growing fleet of all-star wine consultants who come with promises of great grapes, prime vineyards and gold-level scores. Launching a new brand? Struggling with slumping sales? Dream of making a world-class wine? They’re who you call. These consultants represent a shift in the way wine is made. While the name on a label is what winds up getting accolades, free agents might be behind your next favorite bottle.
Below, we take a look at the most famous wine consultants working today, what they make and for whom.
The New Guard
As the star consultant trend grows, it’s received its fair share of critics. Karen MacNeil recently wondered if leaning on a handful of winemakers just results in sameness, particularly in the Napa Valley where cuvees are dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon. One grape, one region, one winemaker consulting on multiple brands—it provokes questions of monotony.
“All of these wineries make plush, soft, well-structured, very expensive Cabernet Sauvignon. Is it a problem if many of them taste largely the same?” said MacNeil.
While the question is valid, for the most part these hired-gun winemakers are like good producers, brought in to tweak a track, rearrange and remix while keeping the author’s original vision intact. The name-brand appeal is apparent—there are over 500 wineries in the Napa Valley alone, a big name will help a brand stand out—but they also offer connections to prime vineyards and an expert hand (and palate).
Philippe Melka
Bordeaux-born Melka has a rap sheet that is a mile long. His current clients include St. Helena’s Merryvale, Roy Estate, Lail, Lithology and Namo—wineries that all center Cabernet Sauvignon (along with a selection of Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs). And while he consults for so many heavyweights, he’s found the time to open his own label, Melka Estates.
Melka’s expertise comes from a long history of working with the greats. He studied geology, agronomy and enology at the University of Bordeaux, which led him to a soil internship at a little winery called Château Haut-Brion. A meeting with Jean-Claude Berrouet, of Château Petrus, parlayed into a job at Dominus, in California. Dominus led to Ridge, where he encountered a charming lab technician. A wedding ensued and in 1995, Melka and his wife, Cherie (an enologist who worked at Ridge and Silver Oak) formed Melka Consulting, signing Lail and Constant Diamond Mountains.
Melka is focused on opulent reds with an impressive ability to age (Lail 2017 Blueprint Cabernet was Wine Enthusiast’s top wine of 2020); however, he doesn’t dictate what his clients should make. Instead, his expertise is playing matchmaker. He knows the valley intimately, and can list off the upsides of hyper-specific plots and microclimates. This means that when his client wants to make a specific wine, he’s able to pair them up with the exact right vineyards. Then he lends his palate to the blend.
Lail 2021 J. Daniel Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley)
Matching power with complexity, Robin Lail’s densely concentrated, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon once again goes deep in black currants, blackberries, cocoa and toasted oak flavors. Velvety, mouthcoating tannins give the structure for a long aging period. Best from 2027–2040. 98 points. Cellar Selection. — Jim Gordon
Thomas Rivers Brown
Brown has a Midas touch and an affinity for working with big figures. He’s worked with antique dealers (Schrader) and Baseball hall-of-famers (Seaver Vineyards), NFL executives (GTS) and Tony Award-winning producers (Kinsella Estate). Despite the proximity to characters, his wines are reserved, with a careful command over oak.
With such a well developed palate, it might be surprising to learn that Brown winemaking wasn’t his first plan. He grew up in a Southern Baptist household where alcohol was taboo, graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in economics and literature and never pursued a formal wine education. But he was curious and a quick study, and by the late ’90s he was working at Turley Wine Cellars.
