History
The brothers' great-grandparents bought the Oakville property in 1954, wanting a retirement home and obliged to take the surrounding land with it. The ground lies within the To Kalon Vineyard Crabb established in 1868 and named for the Greek "the highest good." For some sixty years the family's Cabernet went to Robert Mondavi's Reserve and To Kalon bottlings on an unwritten agreement that ran until 2021; their Detert cousins still farm neighboring blocks of the old holding. Graeme and Alex MacDonald, fourth generation, made their first MACDONALD vintage in 2010, 92 cases.
The Site
Fifteen acres under vine on the rockiest outcrop of the Oakville benchland at the foot of the Mayacamas, farmed organically and dry where feasible, every vine GPS-mapped and numbered.
Vines and Blocks
Cabernet Sauvignon with vines from 1954, among Napa's oldest in commercial production, joined by mid-1970s and 1990s blocks fermented separately before blending.
The Wines
One wine: the MACDONALD Cabernet, a few hundred cases of native-yeast, old-vine To Kalon that became one of the valley's hardest allocations almost on release, with fruit also reaching Silver Oak since the Mondavi era ended.