Forthright Winery has never been built around making wine at scale. Its production is deliberately small, its approach hands-on, and its philosophy unusually straightforward: make wines the team genuinely wants to drink, and make them well.

That approach has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

In 2026, Forthright's 2019 "The Fort" Cabernet Sauvignon was named both Wine of the Year and Cabernet Sauvignon of the Year at the USA Wine Ratings, earning a Double Gold Medal and 96 points. The wine scored 96 for Quality, 95 for Value, and 95 for Packaging, an especially significant result in a competition judged by active U.S. off-premise trade buyers.

Image: 2026 USA Wine Ratings Winner - 2019 Forthright Winery "The Fort"

It was not Forthright's first major success with the competition.

The previous year, the winery entered the USA Wine Ratings for the first time. Its 2019 Forthright Cabernet Sauvignon from Calistoga took Double Gold, 96 points, Cabernet Sauvignon of the Year, and Wine of the Year: USA. The winery's 2019 Forthright Merlot also took Gold, 95 points, and Merlot of the Year. Across its 2025 entries, Forthright reported one Double Gold and seven Gold Medals.

For a boutique winery producing around 1,500 to 2,000 cases a year, the recognition is significant. But the story behind Forthright begins well before the medals.

A friendship that became a winery

Forthright's origins lie with founding partners Patrick McEvoy and Rafer Caudill, whose paths into wine could hardly have been more different.

McEvoy's wine education developed during two decades in Europe, where he explored regions including Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, the Mosel, Piedmont, Rioja, the Loire Valley and beyond. His interest grew not simply through tasting but through travel, food and an appreciation of how wine works around a table.

 

Caudill encountered winemaking much earlier. As a teenager growing up on his family's farm in upstate New York, he discovered a grapevine growing over birch trees. He built a wooden wine press and made his first wine from the fruit.

The two eventually met in Chicago in the early 1990s. Their shared interest in making wine eventually brought them both to Napa, where they studied enology and viticulture at Napa Valley College.

Forthright's first vintage followed in 2013. The winery's current website identifies McEvoy and Caudill as proprietors and winemakers, with both involved in the hands-on work of production.

Image: From (L-R)  Patrick McEvoy and Rafer Caudill.

That hands-on approach remains central to the winery.

Forthright describes its production as small-lot, handcrafted winemaking with minimal intervention. The team sources fruit from local growers and places particular emphasis on sustainable farming. Rather than forcing wines toward a predetermined style, the stated philosophy is to let nature determine their profile while avoiding unnecessary additives.

A different way to think about Napa

Forthright's portfolio is rooted in classic Napa and California varieties, with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir among its core wines. The winery produces additional styles only when the fruit and resulting wine meet its standards.

Image: Forthright Winery at Napa California.

Merlot has particular significance.

The variety remains the winery's signature wine, despite the damage its reputation suffered in popular culture following the 2004 film Sideways. Forthright has continued to champion the grape, treating it as a serious variety capable of producing structured, layered Napa wine.

The competition results suggest that conviction has substance.

At the 2024 Sommeliers Choice Awards, the 2019 Forthright Merlot received Gold and 93 points. Judges described strawberry, plum, pine cone, and dried fig, with a rounded, ample, and juicy palate. The same competition has also recognised Forthright wines in earlier years, including a 90-point Gold Medal for the 2016 Forthright Merlot in 2021 and a 90-point Gold Medal for a 2016 Forthright Sauvignon Blanc in 2020.

Cabernet Sauvignon has now become another major part of the winery's international reputation.

The 2019 Forthright Cabernet Sauvignon from Calistoga that dominated the 2025 USA Wine Ratings showed deep ruby colour, mocha, violet and dark cherry aromatics, followed by cassis, graphite and cocoa on a full-bodied palate with a polished, structured finish.

What makes the USA Wine Ratings recognition different

The significance of Forthright's results is not simply the number beside the medal.

USA Wine Ratings is designed around the U.S. off-premise market. Its judging panel consists of active retail and trade buyers, and wines are evaluated across Quality, Value, and Packaging. The system is intended to reflect the factors that influence actual purchasing decisions rather than judging quality in isolation.

That makes Forthright's consecutive performances particularly relevant to the winery's ambitions.

In a 2025 interview with USA Wine Ratings, McEvoy described the first-year results as an affirmation of Forthright's work and an important story to share with distributors and buyers as the winery expands beyond its direct-to-consumer business.

The 2026 result adds another layer.

"The Fort" was not simply a high-scoring Cabernet. It was the competition's Wine of the Year, placing it at the top of the overall results. It also received the Cabernet Sauvignon of the Year title.

For a small Napa producer, that creates a useful kind of credibility. The wine has been assessed not only by people who taste professionally, but by buyers who understand the practical realities of putting wine in front of American consumers.

The wines are intended to be shared

There is a noticeable lack of grandiosity in Forthright's stated philosophy.

The winery talks about "Craic", an Irish expression for good times, and describes its purpose in terms of enjoying wine with friends and family. It does not present wine as an exercise in status or ceremony. Instead, the emphasis is on handcrafted elegance, simplicity, joy, and the experience around the bottle.

That idea extends into the winery's hospitality.

Forthright welcomes visitors by appointment to its Napa Valley cave, where guests can taste with the winemakers. The winery describes the experience as informal and personal rather than a rehearsed sales presentation.

Image: Winemaker Patrick answering questions during a private wine tasting in our cave.

It is also why the name Forthright feels appropriate.

The winery describes itself through honesty, simplicity, and an unwillingness to release wines that do not meet its standards. Its philosophy is not to make every possible style in every possible year. If the fruit or finished wine does not meet the bar, the winery says it will not release it.

That restraint is perhaps the most revealing part of the story.

The medals may suggest a winery chasing recognition. The company's own philosophy suggests something else: a small team making limited quantities, working closely with its fruit and waiting for the wines to become what they should be.

The awards have simply made that work much harder to overlook.

From its 2013 beginnings to the 2025 USA Wine Ratings breakthrough and the 2026 Wine of the Year, Forthright has built its reputation without abandoning the scale and intimacy that defined it from the beginning.

For McEvoy, Caudill and the wider Forthright team, the most convincing argument remains the wine itself.

The bottle opens. The table fills. People stay a little longer.

That, ultimately, is what Forthright says wine is for.

Header Image: From (L-R)  Rafer Caudill and Patrick McEvoy.

Also Read:
2026 USA Wine Ratings Results Announced
The American Wine Regions Challenging Napa’s Dominance
How USA Wine Ratings Helps Wineries Reach U.S. Retail Buyers