Very limited!
Tasting Notes
Beckstoffer Dr. Crane soars from the glass with seductive notes of crème de cassis, marzipan, blackberry pie, violets, and wet stones. This profoundly beautiful, layered wine shows its class with impressive structure, a mouth-coating texture, density, and an almost liqueur-like purity. It is reliably massive, yet delivers gracefully with outstanding balance and a long, silky finish. Breathtaking.
-The most supple of all our Cabernets.
Blend: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Only 14 barrels (350 cases)!
 
Inspiration
Our goal with Beckstoffer Dr. Crane is simply to do justice to this Grand-Cru-level patch of rocks and gravel on the south side of St. Helena. It represents the best barrels of our production from this vineyard in a given year.
Brazilian artist Bruno Melo’s abstract label consists of intersecting power lines and towers that create their own repeating pattern. It represents energy, structure, and is a nod to the power lines running above this lauded site.
Terroir
No wine better defines the power and intensity of the valley floor of St. Helena than Beckstoffer Dr. Crane. Intensely gravelly and alluvial, the vineyard abuts a gravel quarry and the rocky banks of Sulphur Creek. Robert M. Parker Jr. once described a wine made from here as “La Mission Haut-Brion-on-steroids…as it seems to be all gravel pit.” This sunny, hot site is renowned for its distinctive floral aromas, its copious fresh and dried red and black fruit, and unabashed wet-stone aromas and flavors. The wine it produces is somehow less mineral than Beckstoffer Las Piedras, however.
Vice Versa was founded by Ottawa native and entrepreneur Patrice Breton. From his youth, Patrice always sought a vocation that would combine his passions: creativity, science, art and culture, and he finally found this nexus in Vice Versa. 2024 will mark Vice Versa’s 22nd vintage in the Napa Valley. Patrice learned winemaking at the side of Paul Hobbs who produced several vintages in the early 2000s with Patrice but were never released. Patrice learned as much as he could during his time directly working with Hobbs. The first commercial release of Vice Versa was from the 2003 vintage. Paul was winemaker from 2003 through 2013. When Paul began to become busier with his own consulting clients and international projects Philippe Melka and his team including winemaker Maayan Koschitzky were brought on board to craft the wines. They made some changes in the winemaking including introducing longer fermentation times, longer maceration times and never using any pressed juice.
Today, Spencer Kelly heads a winemaking team which also includes Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky of Atelier Melka. They and every other member of our coterie are driven by passion for our shared métier.
We acquired an estate vineyard in Calistoga in 2019, and the summer of 2024 will see the launch of a new winery facility there. Our greatest wines are perpetually ahead of us.
Their labels have been designed by two of the best in the business – first by Chuck House of Icon Design Group and a more recent completely different iteration by Napa based Richard Von Saal of VonSaal Design which ties in an image relating to ‘vice versa’ using curvilinear lines while also representing the Fibonacci sequence (where each subsequent number is the addition of the two preceding ones, starting from 0 and 1).