Richard Luftig spent 25 years buying wine for New York restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern, and kept running into the same problem: he couldn't find a California Cabernet he actually wanted to pour that a normal person could afford. So he made one. Pied à Terre sources from good Sonoma County growers, keeps intervention to a minimum, and bottles the wine without the usual California Cab theatrics. The 2018 has had time to settle — the oak is folded in, the tannins have relaxed, and it drinks with a sense of proportion that's genuinely rare at this address. A sommelier's Cabernet, made because nobody else was making it.