I’ve mentioned this before, but sometimes the rabbit holes I go down in researching some of these stories is epic. And to then pair all that information down to just over 1,000 words is monumental. So with that warning, I will try to present a cohesive story on what I think is fascinating yet not all that well known.

A while back, we were invited to a dinner to discuss an Italian wine portfolio. At the pre-dinner meet and greet, the distributor offered some other wines in his portfolio, and the wine that was our staff favorite was Taub Family Howell Mountain Cabernet 2018. Racking my brain, all I knew was that this wine was a relatively new wine for Taub Family Selections (formerly part of Palm Bay), and the wine was formerly known as Heritance Wine. And this started my leap down a vast rabbit hole.

The Taub Family story goes back to bootlegging days four generations ago. It seems that Jacob and Abner Taub were heavily involved in bootlegging brandy. Due to some legal problems, Jacob was incarcerated for a while and received a presidential pardon from Franklin D. Roosevelt issued in 1935. The physical pardon—now a treasured piece of Taub family history—is proudly displayed in Marc Taub’s office and inspired the Palm Bay release of a bourbon called Jacob’s Pardon. Officially, Martin Taub launched a brandy rectifying business in New York on December 6, 1933, the day after the repeal of Prohibition. In the decades following Prohibition, Martin operated successful spirits rectifying business and got into wine and spirits wholesaling in New York. 

An interesting side story is the relationship between the Taubs and Gallo families. As the story goes, a young Ernest Gallo visited New York City in the mid-1930s, hoping to establish his name and a brand-new wine venture. While surveying the marketplace, he kept seeing bottles of Lafayette Brandy in stores, so he tracked down its producer—Martin Taub and his brothers—and paid them a visit. “Ernest went to my grandfather’s office down on 17th Street in Manhattan and said he and his brother were making brandy out in California,” Marc says. “Marty invited him in, poured him some Lafayette Brandy, and told Ernest if that he could make brandy like this and get them a good price, they’d consider doing business. So Ernest swirled it and tasted it, looked around the room, grabbed the garbage can and threw the brandy out, and then said, ‘I don’t think I can make it this bad.’ With that, he walked out with a 500-barrel order from my grandfather. I still have the contract hanging in my office. It’s pretty amazing.” The Taub and Gallo family became good friends and business partners to the point where Martin Taub started the company Gallo Wine Distributor of New York in 1952.

Martin’s son, David, along with his father, saw an opportunity to fill out their portfolio with spirits and fine wines and created Palm Bay Imports in 1977. They started with Cavit Pinot Grigio and were followed by other houses, Altemasi, Batasiolo, Rocca delle Macie, and 15 Italian producers, making more than 100 labels. They expanded with a global wine portfolio from nine other countries. Palm Bay Imports grew to the point where it needed to diversify. They started Taub Family Selections for their more boutique players, which included 25 winemakers and wines from ten other countries. David’s son, Marc Taub, third generation, says, “Taub Family Selections is our fine wine business,” he adds. “It speaks to our family’s move toward the best players, those businesses that are primarily family owned and multi-generational. We share our love and passion for wine here, and we have very little duplication.”

A compelling item on Mark Taub’s bucket list was to own his own winery. After generations of representing the bests wineries in the world, including Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Trimbach, the winery bearing the Taub name had to be special. Enter Heritance wines. But first, another rabbit hole.

Bernard Portet’s father was the technical director at Chateau Lafite Rothschild, so Bernard grew up tasting some of the best wines ever. After a stint in the army and college, he was hired by John Goelet, an American descendant of the Guestier wine merchant family of Bordeaux, to search the world, including Australia, South Africa, North America, and North Africa, to find the best region outside of France to plant a vineyard. He chose the site location for Napa’s Clos du Val Winery at Stags Leap, their initial vineyards, and was there as Co-founder, Vice-Chairman, and Winemaker from 1972 to 2008. It was his first vintage (1972) that was one of only 6 Cabernets selected for the now historic famous Paris Tasting of 1976. Ten years later, in 1986, the same wine, in a rematch, took first place against the best wines in the world. During his 40 years at Clos de Val, he knocked on doors to sell wine, planted another vineyard in Carneros, and mastered the wine industry. But he never changed his style and remained true to his elegant approach to a sense of place and balance. After 40 years as a winemaker to Clos du Val, he decided to retire. That lasted six months.

For someone involved in the Napa wine industry for so long, the concept of “retirement” is often just an excuse for a short break. A new business was contrived over a cup of coffee with good friend and wine veteran Don Chase. Chase, who had held executive-level positions with Beringer, Rutherford Hill, Quintessa, and Kunde Estate, was also at loose ends, so he and Bernard decided to form a new company called Polaris Wines, whose initial brand was Heritance. The name Heritance is an amalgam of heritage and inheritance. Bernard has cultivated a number of vineyard relationships over the years and was able to secure fruit for the Heritance wines from great vineyards in St. Helena, Rutherford, Oakville, Yountville, Mount Veeder, and Howell Mountain. Having enjoyed a long relationship with most of these growers, Bernard can specify how he wants the fruit grown. The goal was to showcase a vineyard’s location, preferring to highlight influences from individual soil types and varietal characteristics. Heritance’s first vintage was in 2008, with very small quantities snapped up by foodies and wine connoisseurs. 

In 2013, as I mentioned before, Marc Taub was on the hunt to buy a world-class winery in Napa. He met with Bernard Portet and Don Chase of Polaris wines and struck a deal for Heritance Wine, a brand with impeccable providence and a tremendous reputation. Taub Family wines invested in a new winery and hired Thomas Hinde as the winemaker. Tom has enjoyed a long career in Napa and Sonoma – including as General Manager for Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates. Tom was part of the winemaking team that helped develop the wines for Cardinale and Lokoya wineries, General Manager of Hartford Family Winery, La Crema, and then later as President, CEO, and Director of Winemaking for Flowers Vineyard and Winery. It seems at long last that Marc Taub, along with his son Jake are realizing their life-long dream of ownership in one of California’s best wineries, Heritance.

The grapes for this wine are sourced from the Rahn vineyard in the Howell Mountain AVA. The Cabernet Sauvignon clones are 337, 191 and 4. The vineyard has deep, well-drained, porous, nutrient-lean, rocky volcanic soils composed of crumbly white, decomposed volcanic ash and red, iron-laden clay.

Grapes were hand-harvested, destemmed, and hand-sorted. A pre-fermentation cold soak lasts for 3-5 days, followed by 14 days of fermentation with 3 daily pump-overs. Fermented to dry on skins with an additional 7 to 14 days of extended maceration to optimize the flavor, mouthfeel, and tannin structure of the wine. Drained, pressed, and transferred to French oak barrels, where it was aged for 22 months in 75% new oak.

The wine shows deep garnet-purple in color with alluring, perfumed aromatics of violets, black cherries, crème de cassis, cedar, and cigar box with a hint of dried herbs and potpourri. Big, rich, full-bodied, and voluptuous in the mouth, the palate is superbly structured with soft tannins and fantastic freshness. Intense and concentrated flavors of blackberries, black currants, and blueberry compote with layers of licorice and chocolate mint. The dark fruit and well-integrated,  refined tannins contribute to a lengthy, memorable finish.

Taub Family Howell Mountain Cabernet 2018

Less than 1,000 cases were made of this wine, and it was targeted at restaurants and collectors. They never submitted the wine for review and let us try the wine because we were at a wine event, and the supplier was trying to sell us something else. We were so taken with this wine that we whined and begged and were finally able to get allocated 25 six-packs of this fantastic wine. I tasted it again with our staff, and these seasoned, crusty old wine geeks all agreed this wine was something very special. Dark fruit in the nose, with some sage and vanilla oak. On the palate, it was medium to full-bodied, with dark cherries, spice and leather, dusty tannins, and herbs. An amazing long dark cherry finish that went on forever. The big surprise was how balanced and pure this wine is at 15.4% alcohol without a hint of being hot. This is an excellent wine from a great vintage, from an outstanding growing region. Don’t miss out because I know I will run out.

Regular Price: $79.99

*No Minimum or Maximum order requirement

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Wine is packed in a 6 bottle case

*Wine pricing for these wine promotions are held for two weeks after the email offer.

We can hold wines in unpaid reserves for two weeks to allow you time to pick up your wine. If it takes you longer than that to pick up your wines, give us a call, and we can process your wine and move it to paid reserves.

Orders must be done by replying to this email. The reason is that I need to keep control of the inventory in one central spot. Emailing or calling your favorite wine geek at one of our four stores may not get your orders in on time to be counted or processed and this creates a helter-skelter for us to get you the wine. For the same reason, ordering on our online Web Store is linked to our regular price, and this sale price is only offered on the email platform. It is also why it takes me some time to respond due to the deluge of orders that I sometimes get. We haven't reached the efficiency or volume of Amazon yet, and in this post-pandemic environment, simple operations sometimes prove difficult. Thank you in advance for your patience.

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