Happy Mother’s Day. We have been toasting mom for a few days with tasty selections sure to please, but perhaps the best wine to toast mom with today comes from one of the very best, Robin Lail and Lail Vineyards. Though she certainly isn’t the mother of Napa Valley, she has been an integral part of the Napa community her entire life, growing up in her early years at the historic Inglenook winery with her groundbreaking father, John Daniel Jr., one of the father’s of Napa Valley wine. (More on Robin’s father in one of my past D Magazine articles here.)

Robin co-founded Dominus Winery in 1982, and Merryvale in 1983. Both iconic Napa Valley wineries, but perhaps her greatest accomplishment would come with the co-founding of Lail Vineyards with two of the most important people in her life, her daughters. With the founding of Lail Vineyards, Robin Lail has the opportunity to tell her story through the wine, with her family, along with celebrated Napa Valley winemaker, Philippe Melka. She is carrying on her family’s legacy, leaving her own impressive mark on history.

She ensures the legacy of her first grandchild, daughter Erin’s oldest, Georgia Eileen, with her succulent, fleshy, and delicious Georgia Sauvignon Blanc ($155).

From Lail’s three-acre, dry-farmed Totem Estate Vineyard in Yountville, and fermented and aged in 70% new French oak barrels for nineteen months, the luscious, highly-textured wine has structure and complexity, concentration and character. Fresh and fragrant, the wine opens with fresh honeysuckle and peach blossom, followed by flavors of stone fruits (apricot, white peach, nectarine), zesty citrus, fresh lemongrass, and subtle herb. With a medium-bodied palate, this small production beauty finishes with a lingering note of crushed stone minerality wrapped with vanilla cream. This wine consistently proves that the Lail legacy is secure. #Cheers