The unofficial wine of pool parties, rosé is usually pretty cheap. This one costs $150. High-end rosés — typically priced at around $40-$50 — have been trending in Napa Valley, but Abloom is the first to cross the $100 threshold.
The wine, which is mostly sold in $450 three packs, is a bet on a possible new direction for Napa winemakers at a time when the struggling wine industry is desperate for solutions. Abloom doesn’t follow the typical formula of a luxury Napa Valley wine brand. It doesn’t produce Cabernet Sauvignon, the region’s longtime cash cow. The wines are not made by one of Napa Valley’s de facto consulting winemakers, like Thomas Rivers Brown or Philippe Melka. And it’s not the vanity project of a retired tech CEO.
“There can be another star in Napa. It doesn’t have to be Cabernet,” said Sally Johnson Blum, one of Abloom’s founders. The price point is on par with the cost of a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet because “it actually costs as much to produce as the Oakville Cabernet I make,” she said, referring to a wine from one of Napa Valley’s most prestigious regions.
Abloom was founded in 2023 by a trio of trailblazing women winemakers, who each recently departed a major Napa Cabernet house: Molly Hill, who spent nearly two decades at Sequoia Grove, and first conceived of Abloom; Johnson Blum, formerly of Mondavi; and Ashley Hepworth, a winemaker at Joseph Phelps for 23 years…