Recognized at Premiere Napa Valley 2022: Alpha Omega and the Resilience of a Historic Vintage

As featured in the Napa Valley Register, written by Tim Carl, March 3, 2022.

Every February, the trade gathers in Napa Valley for Premiere Napa Valley, one of the wine world’s most closely watched events. The 2022 auction was not simply a market exercise. It was a testament to what this valley is made of: perseverance, community, and an unbreakable commitment to craft, even in the shadow of catastrophe.

Alpha Omega was among the producers whose 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon earned recognition at this year’s event, fetching $540 per bottle and drawing praise from writer Tim Carl as one of the standouts of the entire tasting.

A Vintage Shaped by Fire and Resilience

The 2020 vintage was historic for all the wrong reasons. The Glass Fire tore through 67,484 acres of Napa Valley, damaging or destroying nearly 30 wineries. Smoke, power outages, and the weight of a global pandemic pressed down on every decision made in the cellar that year. The challenge was immense.

And yet, the wines told a different story. Carl described the Alpha Omega 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon as “mind-boggling fantastic.” That kind of recognition, offered at a tasting attended by the most discerning wine trade professionals in the country, reflects something deeper than winemaking skill. It reflects the character of a team that refused to let an extraordinary year produce an ordinary wine.

Head winemaker Melissa Paris and consulting winemaker Andy Erickson bring that same commitment to every vintage at Alpha Omega. Their work is rooted in a fundamental belief: that even the most difficult growing seasons carry within them the potential for something remarkable, if you know how to listen to the land.

What Premiere Napa Valley Reveals About a Vintage

Premiere Napa Valley is more than an auction. Now in its 26th year, it is an opportunity for Napa Valley Vintners member wineries to connect with the global wine trade. The wines presented are often still aging in barrel, offered as small-lot futures before they are ever bottled. As a result, the prices achieved at PNV have long served as a bellwether for how the trade reads a given vintage.

In 2022, that reading was complicated. Because the 2020 vintage was so broadly affected by fire, the auction featured wines spanning multiple vintages rather than the traditional focus on a single year. More than 30 lots showcased the 2020 vintage alongside other years, creating a tasting that was as much a portrait of resilience as it was a market event.

The 2022 PNV raised $2.7 million. The total reflected the difficult vintage story at its heart. That said, Carl’s account emphasized what endured: the spirit of collaboration, the quality of wines that survived an impossible year, and the generosity of a community determined to support one another.

For collectors and trade buyers seeking wines of genuine distinction from Napa Valley’s most celebrated vineyard sites, the recognition earned by Alpha Omega at Premiere 2022 is meaningful context. These are not simply wines that received a favorable score. They are wines that were tested by fire, literally, and prevailed.

Alpha Omega at the Rutherford Bench: Terroir as Foundation

At Alpha Omega, the pursuit of extraordinary Cabernet Sauvignon begins in the vineyard. Our estate sits on the Rutherford Bench along Highway 29, in St. Helena, one of Napa Valley’s most storied growing environments. From there, we source from some of the valley’s most revered sites, including Beckstoffer To Kalon in Oakville, Beckstoffer Georges III in Rutherford, and vineyard holdings across Atlas Peak, Spring Mountain District, Mount Veeder, and Oak Knoll District.

Each sub-appellation tells its own story. Atlas Peak, rising to nearly 2,000 feet in the Vaca Mountains with rocky volcanic soils and the cooling influence of San Pablo Bay, produces Cabernet of focused intensity. Mount Veeder, in the dense forested heights of the southern Mayacamas, pushes vines to their limits and rewards patience with wines of mountain spice and unwavering structure. Rutherford, with its famous dust and deep benchland soils, lends the signature finesse and aromatic complexity that define this corner of Napa Valley.

Melissa Paris draws on all of these sites to craft wines that speak honestly about where they come from. That authenticity, that terroir-driven commitment, is precisely what the trade recognized at Premiere 2022.

To explore the full range of our AVA Series Cabernets, each one an expression of a distinct Napa Valley appellation, is to understand why Alpha Omega has earned its place among the valley’s most celebrated boutique wineries.

The Spirit of the 2022 Premiere: Collaboration Over Competition

What Carl captured most vividly in his account was the tone of the 2022 event. This was not the frenzied record-chasing of previous years. Instead, it was something more enduring: a community of vintners and trade professionals gathered around the shared belief that Napa Valley wine, even in its most difficult chapters, is worth celebrating.

The collaboration between Hourglass and Favia, born from mutual loss and a shared determination to honor surviving barrels, embodied that spirit beautifully. Alpha Omega’s recognition at the same event places us within that same tradition, a community of producers who believe that the highest expression of craft comes not from easy years, but from the willingness to meet difficult ones with everything you have.

Robin and Michelle Baggett founded Alpha Omega in 2006 on exactly that belief. Their founding vision was to create wines of genuine distinction from Napa Valley’s most exceptional terroir, always in partnership with the land and the community that surrounds it. That vision has not changed.

Beyond winemaking, the Baggetts have remained steadfast in their commitment to the broader Napa Valley community. From supporting Auction Napa Valley and a host of local and national causes, to operating the winery almost entirely on solar power as a Napa Green certified estate, the values that earned recognition at Premiere 2022 run far deeper than what is in the glass.

Visit Alpha Omega on the Rutherford Bench

Our estate at 1155 Mee Lane welcomes guests with landmark fountains, a tranquil pond, and sweeping views of the Mayacamas Mountains. Walk-ins are welcome when availability allows. Well-behaved, leashed dogs are always welcome, and children are too. We invite you to experience the wines, the land, and the story that Premiere 2022 helped bring to a wider audience.

Whether you are planning a visit, building a cellar, or simply looking for wines that carry genuine meaning in every vintage, we would love to share what we do.

• ACQUIRE: Explore our current releases and find your place in the Alpha Omega story.
• RESERVE A TASTING: Reserve a tasting at our Rutherford estate and discover why guests describe it as among the finest wine experiences in Napa Valley.
• JOIN THE WINE CLUB: Become part of the Alpha Omega family and receive curated shipments, invitations to exclusive events, and preferred access to wines like these.

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