While winemakers around the world over expound the virtues of the vineyard, one project in Napa is aiming to prove that human ingenuity can transcend terroir.

Fairest Creature, the ultra-premium Napa Cabernet Sauvignon wine brand, aims to show what happens when the abilities of three winemakers and a consultant are favored over prized plots.

Founder and wine aficionado Jayson Hu has brought four of the wine world’s top winemakers and consultants together to create a unique range of wines, each a multi-vineyard blend made from 100 percent Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

The winemakers, Benoit Touquette, Philippe Melka and Thomas Rivers Brown have each produced a wine that showcases their own unique style along with a fourth wine – a master blend of the top barrels – made under the eye of top Bordeaux enologist and blender, Michel Rolland.

Around 3000 bottles are made of each of the "mono-winemaker" wines, which retail at roughly $1000 per bottle. The master blend is only available in magnum format with just 532 magnums made in 2018 – their rarity is reflected in the 8000 USD price tag.

While strongly favoring the power of the individual and their winemaking skill over that of a single terroir, Hu nevertheless believes in using fruit from multiple premium vineyard plots in Rutherford, Oakville and St Helena to achieve the perfect result.

Hu's own venture into wine was inspired by a combination of a deep love of wine and a thirst for knowledge, which he quenched by acquainting himself with the great wines of the Rhône, Burgundy and Bordeaux, as well as Napa.

On describing his mission, he says: "After years of drinking premium Napa Valley Cabs, I have become very familiar with this land and the wines. I think any wine lover would eventually want to make their own wine to express their personal understanding of wine, and to possibly compare with other producers."

He explains: "My aim is pleasure. I don't believe the real reason people drink is to understand any site or terroir; the only thing people should get out of a wine is a hedonistic experience. It is the essence and motivation of any drinking behavior, and it's the only thing I care about."

For Fairest Creature, the art lies in the blend with each wine a mash-up of grapes, vineyards and winemakers. Each label is represented by a fantastical composite creature inspired by Chinese legend and despite the Shakespearian name – it comes from the opening line of the Bard's first sonnet, "From fairest creatures we desire increase" – it is the individuals represented by Chinese mythology that lie at the brand's core. Each illustrated creature has certain composite features proving a fitting tribute to the blends that strive to be greater than the sum of their parts.

For Hu, another core philosophy of this project is the emphasis of people. "I believe individuals who make the wine will ultimately determine the quality and style of it. Mother Nature certainly imparts a certain intangible magic – the juice in your glass is essentially he result of the hard work of individuals."

The blend and the collaboration

On collaborating, Touquette explains: "It's not really a competition; we are friends. I'm glad that Jayson approached us to do this with friends like Thomas and Philippe, and bring in my mentor Michel Rolland. So it's perfect. It's never been done before, so it's gonna be great."

For Brown, “I think all three people present really good wines in three different styles, and it should make interesting blending materials.”

As Rolland explains: "Every winemaker has a style, that's where the creativity of each one is giving the personality to the wine." On reflecting on his own unique position in the project, Rolland muses, "my position … is definitely, the most interesting. To take wines from three stars of winemaking to make my own blend. I am thinking all the master blenders like me have dreamed to do this once in their life."

For Melka, the project was initially daunting, but he was reassured by the consistency and quality of the vineyards that the team selected together, which were "some of the strongest vineyards in Napa Valley, who have been performing at the highest level for a long time".

One advantage of blending, Melka explains, lies in the ability to select "vineyards from different really interesting sites in Napa Valley", bringing layers and great complexity to the wines.

Sine Fine

First in the line-up is Sine Fine by Touquette.

The name Sine Fine literally translates from Latin to "without end", and the bottle is fittingly represented by two phoenix-like birds joined in flight by one set of wings.

Two birds entwined in a dance is a recurring theme in Chinese legend often representing eternal love and intimacy. The romantic and loving image mirrors Touquette's passionate and flamboyant wine style.

Deep purple in color, Sine Fine is big, bold and full-bodied but not without nuance. On the palate, the wine expresses intense notes of cassis, blackcurrant and violet among other aromatic florals. The dark brambly fruit is backed up by tobacco smoke, spice and graphite. Although the alcohol is high, the velvet-smooth tannins help make it a seamless wine.

Polyspline

The Polyspline, made by Bordeaux-born but Napa-native winemaker Melka, is perhaps the most classic in style, while bringing an ethereal quality to the Fairest Creature range. As Brown describes: "I feel like Philippe's has a little bit more classical style, a little more pulled-back, incredibly well-focused, really ageworthy and cellar-worthy wines."

The Polyspline name plays on the rules of geometry as it hints at the multiple points to a curve or spine. The bottle illustration serves to further back this up, with its spectral depiction of the legendary nine-tailed fox, known as jiuweihú in Chinese myth. Its wispy, curling tails allude to the complexity and structure of the wine, as well as its diaphanous nature.

Various incantations of the fox spirit appear throughout Asia, from Japan to Korea, and they can be harbingers of both good and bad fortune. In the case of the Polyspline, however, the fox spirit is rare, otherworldly and highly fortuitous.

On the palate, the Polyspline is both elegant and delicate with a focus on rich black forest and bramble fruit backed up by notes of garrigue. Hints of cedar wood and French field herbs like tarragon and lavender overlay the fruit exuding an aromatic touch of summer. Although both tannins and alcohol are present, they remain seamless and in balance delivering a wine capable of cellaring for many years to come.

Perihelios

The evocatively named Perihelios – which literally means the point at which a planet is closest to the sun it orbits – is made by Thomas Rivers Brown, the only American winemaker in the mix.

In comparison to Sine Fine and Polyspline, Brown believes Perihelios "is probably the most forward, probably the most easy-to-understand from the beginning. Benoit is somewhere in the middle, and Philippe's wines, I think, would take a few years to fully unwind."

Like the others, Perihelios has its own mythic creature, a massive unicorned whale leaping skyward, its fins-turned-wings brush the clouds. The sea-beast is said to be inspired by Chinese Taoist philosopher Zhuang Tzu who described a leviathan-esque animal, K'un, in his work, The Zhuangzi. In the fable, K'un transforms into the giant bird, Peng and Perihelios captures this transfiguration.

Naturally, Perihelios is a big, majestic wine designed to unfold over time. From its initial ruby rim, the wine darkens to deep purple, through to an inky bluish black. These depths are recreated on the palate with intense notes of black forest, hedgerow and bramble fruit. Aromatic notes of lavender and mint weave through rich tones of cassis and black cherry. Deeper still lie indulgent notes of chocolate, fresh earth, fruit jam, cedar and graphite.

Triniceros

The final wine is the jewel in the Fairest Creature crown, the Triniceros. A master blend by Rolland of the top barrels from each of the three winemakers, the wine is only produced in magnum format and is extremely limited.

The name, Triniceros literally translates from the Latin for "three horns", a homage to both the three winemakers and the mythological composite creature Qilin of Chinese legend. The Qilin is said to hail the arrival of a great leader or sage and, although there are wildly differing depictions, generally the beast had the face of dragon, the antlers and body of a tiger or stag, the tail of an ox and the scales of a carp. Its composite nature and mythic heralding role make it a fitting mascot for the flagship wine of Fairest Creature.

For Hu, Triniceros is testament to his theory, as he explains. "From my past drinking experience, I find that blending is key to making a great Cabernet Sauvignon. The mixture of different sites and even different winemakers, which my Triniceros has done, truly pushes the boundary of Cabernet." Michel Rolland also considers this very special blend "among the best I have done in Napa".

This article was produced in association with Fairest Creature.