Recently, while rooting around my cellar, I stumbled across a sample bottle sent to me years ago. It didn’t have a proper label or, for that matter, a capsule covering the cork. It only had a white adhesive label, on which was printed “1995 Renaissance ‘Terroir’ Slope 1.”

Renaissance Vineyard and Winery – in the oddly named town of Oregon House, about 70 miles northeast of Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California – is a winery I know pretty well. Yet you’ll rarely see it mentioned, let alone praised: More about this in a moment.

Anyway, I exhumed this sample bottle, which I’m sure the winery hoped I would taste a little sooner than last month. After all, the wine is now 10 years old. I opened it to enjoy with dinner and what emerged was nothing less than one of the finest California cabernets I’ve ever tasted.

Now, a statement like that puts one out on a limb. “What?” you say incredulously. “How can this be? The guy is off his tasting nut. Who’s ever written about Renaissance, let alone as the source of one of California’s finest cabernets?”

These are, ahem, fair questions. Indeed, I’ve asked myself the very same, thinking of the late Katharine Graham, former owner of the Washington Post, who said about publishing during the Watergate scandal, “I sometimes privately thought: ‘If this is such a hell of a story, then where is everybody else?'”

If Renaissance cabernets are such a hell of a wine, then where is everybody else? Few and far between is the answer. Yet I stand by my statement: Renaissance makes some of California’s finest cabernets, bar none.

The problem, you see, is stylistic. Today’s most highly praised California cabernets tend to be big-scale, fruity, oaky affairs delivering what might be described as gigabytes of flavor. That is precisely what Renaissance cabernets are not. They don’t show well when young. They’re austere, detailed, and buttoned-down, much like what great red Bordeaux used to taste like in the 1970s and earlier.

The skinny on Renaissance Vineyard and Winery is that it cultivates a 365-acre vineyard on a curving set of slopes between 1,700- and 2,300-feet elevation composed of a red topsoil over decomposing granite in a remote part of California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. The vines grow on their own roots, a rarity in California, where phylloxera requires grafted rootstocks. Cultivation is described as organic and everything is estate bottled. It’s a remote wine world unto itself, much like Europe’s monastic vineyards centuries ago.

My reaction, when I first laid eyes on the Renaissance vineyard 14 years ago, was that it looked like nothing so much as the famous, vertiginous Rhone vineyard called Hermitage. Others have said the same. Australian wine writer James Halliday memorably – and quite accurately – declared in his “Wine Atlas of California”: “If there is a more remarkable vineyard in California, I did not see it. Those who have visited the Douro in Portugal or gazed upon the hill of Hermitage in the Rhone Valley will understand the impact Renaissance has on the first-time visitor.”

But remoteness doesn’t explain everything about Renaissance’s low to nonexistent profile. Partly it has to do with the murky quality of its very existence. Renaissance is the creation of the Fellowship of Friends, a religious organization founded in the Bay Area in the late 1960s by Robert Earl Burton, a former elementary school teacher. Members are tithed 10% of their gross incomes, like the Mormons. Their beliefs are based on the teaching of early 20th-century Russian philosophers, George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky. Their teachings are collectively known as “The Fourth Way.”

Mr. Burton, 66, lives a secretive life. But it’s clear that he likes the finer things. Not only did the Fellowship of Friends purchase 1,700 acres of land in remote Yuba County in 1971, but it also erected elegant, neoclassical structures to create a campus for its reported 2,000 members worldwide. It’s almost Star Trek-like in its preposterous elegance in the rugged setting of Yuba County.

Inevitably, accusations swirl about the Fellowship of Friends being a cult. You can see why there might be – and very likely is – considerable nose-wrinkling when it comes to writing about Renaissance wines. Yet the wines exist in their own right. And they are stunning. To miss these wines, either willfully or inadvertently, is to miss something profound in California winegrowing today.

Renaissance also had one other, wine-specific, problem: For many years, it made too many wines. Precisely because it had such a large vineyard, located in an area with no prior wine history, the winery planted all sorts of grapes and made all sorts of wines. The resulting array was dazzling at best, including some outstanding dry and sweet Rieslings, and befuddling at worst. Winemakers came and went, partly reflecting the somewhat transient nature of the Renaissance campus itself. (Members of the Fellowship come from numerous countries, staying with fellow members in the area – but not on campus – for anywhere from a few weeks to six months.)

Since 1994 Renaissance’s winemaking has come into greater focus thanks to the stabilizing presence of winemaker Gideon Beinstock. An Israeli of French background, Mr. Beinstock grafted-over nearly one-quarter of the 365-acre vineyard, installing new varieties such as viognier and syrah, as well as expanding the proportion of cabernet sauvignon and blending grapes such as merlot and cabernet franc in the vineyard.

But Mr. Beinstock cannot change, nor would he wish to, the commanding quality of the vineyard’s site. That decomposing granite soil creates austere, detailed, slightly hard wines. Can they be softened up and made fruitier? Sure. You can do almost anything these days given today’s winemaking technology. But Mr. Beinstock knows – and the wines over time tell us themselves – that this is not what this unusual site imparts.

So what does Renaissance do best? For this taster, it’s cabernet sauvignon, hands-down, although the merlot is promising, as is a cabernet syrah blend called Le Provencal.

Making matters more inviting yet, Renaissance offers older bottlings, thanks to the scale of its production and, very likely, a relatively modest demand. Its wines are available through retailers in New York as well as directly from the winery. (Right now, thanks to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, New Yorkers can order directly from the winery at 800-655-3277 or www.rvw.com.)

HERE’S THE DEAL

RENAISSANCE CABERNET SAUVIGNON 1997

I can’t think of another winery still offering cabernets from the great 1997 vintage. Yet Renaissance retains a sizable supply. This is lovely, pure cabernet play, still vibrantly youthful with real depth and detail. Like all Renaissance cabs, this will age for years to come and is meant to accompany all the usual foods with wich cabernet sauvignon shines, such as beef, lamb, and other grilled meats. $33.

RENAISSANCE CLARET PRESTIGE 1997

Intended as an homage to classic, old-style red Bordeaux, Claret Prestige is just that. The ’97 vintage was a standout everywhere in California, including Renaissance. Graceful yet undeniably rich and dense, this is a superb, and highly original, blend composed of cabernet sauvignon (43%), merlot (30%), cabernet franc (12%), syrah (6%), sangiovese (6%), and malbec (3%).This is easily one of Renaissance’s finest cabernets, similar to its pure cabernet plays yet perhaps more refined and elegant thanks to the blending. $35.

RENAISSANCE CABERNET SAUVIGNON PREMIERE CUVEE 1995

The ’95 vintage was, along with 1997, an outstanding vintage at Renaissance. Both are intense, beautifully structured and clearly long-lived. The difference is that ’97 is richer while ’95 shows a bit more delicacy.

Premiere Cuvee is Renaissance’s intended “signature” wine, the one the winery sees as the richest, fullest, most long-lived of its array of cabernets. Indeed, this is powerful, full-bodied wine, but it’s nowhere near the fruit bombs so commonly found today. Instead, this is penetrating, dimensional cabernet suffused with an austere fruit and lovely balance, a blend of cabernet sauvignon (76%) and merlot (24%). This is eminently drinkable today, but will make old bones for sure. $45.

RENAISSANCE CABERNET SAUVIGNON VIN DE TERROIR 1995 MAGNUM

This is the very wine sent to me unlabeled all those years ago. Amazingly, Renaissance still has some magnums of it. (All the regular-size bottles are gone.) It is only available directly from the winery (800-655-3277 or www.rvw.com).

Designated “Cuvee de Terroir,” this is 100% cabernet sauvignon from one particular spot in the Renaissance vineyard called Slope 1. This is very great, truly profound California cabernet, filled with whiffs of violets and a striking minerality. It took my breath away. Serve this blind to Bordeaux or California snobs and you’ll get plenty of pleasure watching their astonishment. The price is ridiculously cheap for its quality, to say nothing of getting 10 years’ worth of perfect winery cellaring. You can’t beat that. Get it while you can. $90 a magnum.