The hot new wines out of Napa are white

New York

WHEN a collector friend offered me a glass of Screaming Eagle recently, I automatically pictured the cult winery's polished, pricey red. Instead, I got my first taste of its sophisticated, wildly expensive, almost entirely unattainable white.

Chances are, when you think of Napa Valley, you think of red wine. Well, get ready to be surprised. In this classic cabernet territory, dozens of top-end wineries are focusing the same kind of every-detail-matters approach to whites that they've long lavished on their more prestigious reds.

Fortunately, to try any of them, you don't have to splash out a…