HEALDSBURG: Aperture Cellars announced October 7 that its 2021 Collage Proprietary Red won the red wine category at the 2026 Judgment of Napa, held October 5 at the historic Freemark Abbey in Napa Valley, becoming the first Sonoma County wine to finish first in the event's history.

The tasting, created and produced by Cultured Vine and its founder Angela Duerr, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Judgment of Paris and took place on what would have been the 85th birthday of Steven Spurrier, the British wine merchant who organized the original Paris tasting.

Photograph: Aperture Cellars

Twenty wines, 10 whites and 10 reds spanning Burgundy, Bordeaux, California and beyond, were tasted blind and selected by Master of Wine Peter Marks and Master Sommelier Peter Granoff. The judging panel included winemakers Philippe Melka, Michael Silacci, Chris Carpenter, Tor Kenward, Aaron Pott and Angelina Mondavi, alongside critics including Jancis Robinson MW and Jonathan Cristaldi of Decanter. Because Katz and Tor Kenward each ended up with a wine in the competition, their scores were excluded from the final tally.

The red wines, in order of finish

Aperture's Collage took first, followed by the 2022 Chateau Mouton Rothschild of Pauillac in second, the 2023 TOR Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon of Oakville in third, the 2023 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon of Oakville in fourth, and the 2021 Dominus of Yountville in fifth. The 2022 Chateau Leoville Las Cases, 2022 Chateau Montrose, 2023 Chappellet Pritchard Hill Cabernet Sauvignon, 2022 Vina VIK of Chile and 2023 Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia of Tuscany completed the red lineup.

"I've been saying for years that the best sites in Sonoma County belong in the conversation for the finest Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux-style wines in the world, and this win proves what we have believed all along," said Jesse Katz, Aperture's founder and winemaker, in the announcement. "That it happened blind, alongside benchmark wines from the most famous estates and chateaux in the world's greatest wine regions, makes it incredibly meaningful."

Photograph: Aperture Cellars

The 2021 Collage Proprietary Red, first released in 2025, is the inaugural vintage of the collection Aperture calls its most ambitious and artistically driven project. The blend draws on more than 200 acres across five Sonoma appellations, with more than 300 individual vineyard lots evaluated for each red; the 2021 red spent 24 months in barrel, six months in custom concrete vessels and a further year in bottle before release, debuting at $425 a bottle.

The result carries the echo of the history it was staged to honor. On May 24, 1976, Spurrier and his American business partner Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher organized a blind tasting in Paris pitting California Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon against acclaimed French wines; California wines finished first in both categories, in an outcome that stunned the wine establishment. Fifty years later, the tribute tasting's red category went to a Sonoma County wine, with Gastaud-Gallagher, Spurrier's widow Bella Spurrier, and the family of Time magazine reporter George Taber present at Freemark Abbey.

Aperture, founded in 2009 by first-generation winemaker Katz, works with more than 200 vineyard acres across Sonoma County, including its Healdsburg estate in the Russian River Valley and Farrow Ranch in Alexander Valley, where some estate vines were planted as far back as 1912. The winery says Katz was named Wine Enthusiast's 2025 Winemaker of the Year and that Aperture ranked No. 14 on the 2025 World's 50 Best Vineyards list.