Cristaldi: Tasting 40 vintages of Groth’s Napa Cabernet

Napa Valley correspondent Jonathan Cristaldi tasted every vintage of Groth Vineyards & Winery’s Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon going back to the inaugural 1982 release. Vintage after vintage, each wine was captivating, delicious, and impressionable, further cementing the ageability of well-made Napa Cabernet.

By Jonathan Cristaldi

last updated 23 April 2025

in Tastings

40 years of Groth Cabernet — (Image credit: Richard Knapp)

Before Oakville became Napa’s golden coast of cult and iconic wineries, Dennis and Judy Groth set down roots in the area – more than a decade before Oakville became an appellation.

Two real estate agents and vineyard owners – Ren Harris and Jean Phillips, who owned Paradigm Vineyards and Screaming Eagle, respectively – convinced Groth that Napa was the best place to invest in the burgeoning American wine scene.

Scroll down for Jonathan’s notes on every vintage of Groth Cabernet and Reserve Cabernet

In the spring of 2024, I spent an entire day with founder Dennis Groth, and his daughter, Suzanne, who now leads the family business, and winemaker Ted Henry. We covered an array of topics as we tasted every vintage of Groth’s Oakville Napa Cabernet produced – from 1982 to 2022 – along with a smattering of Reserve wines.

I’ve summarised the main points and history of the winery below, followed by my tasting notes on all 40 wines.

But what I’d like to make clear is that each wine was enjoyable, captivating, delicious, and impressionable. Think about that – American Cabernet Sauvignon, going back 42 years, still inviting, fresh, and enviable.

Great wine is being made in America from every imaginable grape, and here we see King Cabernet Sauvignon strutting its stuff under the warm California sun.

From gaming to growing

Born in 1942, Dennis Groth, a graduate of San Jose State, went to work for Arthur Young and Company. The formation of Intel fuelled a technology boom. Steve Jobs of Apple became Groth’s client, and so did Nolan Bushnell, the ‘father of electronic gaming’ and founder of Atari. Bushnell stole Groth away from Arthur Young in 1976.

Successful in his role as CFO at Atari, even before the company’s collapse, Groth began plotting his next move. Leafing through ads in The Wall Street Journal for farms and wineries in Napa, a new vision began to take hold.

In 1981, while Groth was still active as an executive at Atari, he and his wife, Judy, bought a 121-acre vineyard in Oakville. Justin Meyer (of Silver Oak) had planted the vines for the previous owners in 1972.

Nils Venge, who had been making wine at the adjoining Villa Mount Eden estate (now PlumpJack), caught Dennis’s attention. ‘I liked his wines, and I offered him a contract’.

A year later, in 1982, Groth Vineyards & Winery was officially established.

Venge produced 7,500 cases of the inaugural 1982 Groth Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, mainly from grapes growing in blocks that today produce Groth’s Reserve Cabernet.

The wine was aged in 100% new oak barrels and priced at $12.50 per bottle – several dollars more per bottle than most other Cabernets at the time. Justin Meyer told Groth it was a ‘gutsy move’.

Even more gutsy, that same year, Groth purchased a second site – Hillview Vineyard, a 44-acre estate south of Yountville in the Oak Knoll District planted with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Merlot.

Alongside Cabernet in 1982, they also made 12,000 cases of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

‘Our first strategic plan was to make the best vintage of wine we could’, recalls Groth. ‘We felt if we could do that, we’d be able to sell it and have a sustainable business, not just a passion project.’

Napa’s first 100-point wine

After only a year of working with the vineyards, Venge suggested creating a Reserve wine. He identified blocks of grapes he felt could produce an elevated Cabernet – a bit riper and with longer ageing potential. Dennis remembers Venge saying: ‘It will make us famous’.

Venge made the first Reserve bottling in 1983, ageing it longer and releasing it six to eight months later than the Napa Cabernet.

Neither man could have predicted the reaction from powerhouse critic Robert Parker, who, in 1990, awarded the 1985 vintage a perfect score – the first 100-point score ever given by a major wine critic to not just a Napa Cabernet but a Californian wine.

Parker called it, ‘utterly compelling and magical,’ comparing it to Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ Cask 23 and Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet, and most flattering of all, said it possessed, ‘the unsurpassed perfume and lavish richness of the 1985 and 1986 bottlings of Mouton-Rothschild.’

Groth’s sheer delight at how well it was holding up was palpable during my tasting. That 1985 Reserve and the 1982 Napa Cabernet were eye-popping. They were just remarkable – generous, with freshness, length, poise, and downright delicious.

Late 1980s to early 2000s: Success, growth, and change

The late 1980s and early 1990s were pivotal for Groth Vineyards, marked by success and challenges. By the early 1990s, the winery was thriving, but the original vines planted in the 1970s – as California Sprawl – were nearing the end of their productivity.

The looming threat of viruses added to the difficulties. Although the significant replanting wouldn’t begin until the early 2000s, it was clear that strategic decisions were needed for long-term sustainability.

Founding winemaker Nils Venge left after the 1993 vintage, with Michael Weis, an Inglenook and Robert Mondavi veteran, joining in 1994.

To keep pace with demand and mitigate supply issues caused by inevitable replanting, the family began seeking additional fruit sources. In 1995, they bought grapes from Jean Phillips’ Screaming Eagle site and Ren Harris’ Paradigm Vineyards for their Napa Cabernet.

Under Weis’ supervision, replanting began in earnest in 2001, with Groth uprooting all the Reserve blocks (there would be no Groth Reserve made again until 2005). Supplemental fruit sources for the Napa Cabernet came from Oakville sites Taddei and Vyborny Game Farm Ranch, located in the southwest corner of the Oakville AVA.

In 2005, a new winemaking facility came online, and they introduced night-harvesting and a sorting process that dramatically improved quality. By 2006, the Groths clearly understood their vineyard’s potential, especially with the new rootstocks.

Rooted in Oakville

The next decade brought about stability and success. In 2014, Cameron Perry took over from Michael Weis until early 2020, when winemaking duties passed to Ted Henry, who finished the 2020 vintage and has been full-steam ahead ever since.

In 2017, Suzanne Groth was named President & CEO, tasked with shepherding the family’s estate for the next generation. In 2021, her mom, Judy, passed away at the age of 78 – after 57 years of marriage to her dad, Dennis.

Teary-eyed, Dennis recalled how his longtime partner left an indelible mark on not only his and his children’s lives but on the winery, particularly in its design and label.

‘She was deeply involved in these creative aspects’, he said, working closely with their architect, Robert Gianelli, on the California Mission-style winery design, completed in 1990.

One year after the winery was built, the Groths helped found the Oakville Winegrowers, which advocated for creating the Oakville appellation in 1993.

‘We always begin and end with a map of where we are located,’ Suzanne told me, ‘because it has become a bit of a ‘Golden Coast,’ but we’ve been here the whole time. We are one of the architects of Oakville.’

Hoping not to repeat mistakes of the past, the Groth family is already six years into a 30-year vineyard replanting project to secure the winery’s future and cement its legacy for the third generation and beyond.

40 years of Groth Cabernet

Wines are listed from youngest to oldest: 2021-1982

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Jonathan Cristaldi is a wine writer and critic based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more than a decade, his articles on wine, spirits and beer have appeared in a host of print and digital platforms, including Decanter, Food & Wine, Departures, The SOMM Journal, Tasting Panel Magazine, Liquor.com, Seven Fifty Daily, Los Angeles Magazine, Thrillist, Tasting Table and Time Out LA among others. When not writing about wine, Cristaldi works as a scriptwriter on film and documentary projects with award-winning commercial photographer and director Rachid Dahnoun.

Scroll down for Jonathan’s notes on every vintage of Groth Cabernet and Reserve Cabernet

From gaming to growing

Napa’s first 100-point wine

Late 1980s to early 2000s: Success, growth, and change

Rooted in Oakville

40 years of Groth Cabernet

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