Winemaker Notes
The flagship ADAMVS Cabernet Sauvignon showcases the structured texture and opulence that make the wines of Howell Mountain so compelling. An estate wine of depth and elegance, it is a meticulous barrel selection crafted around a core of fruit from their prized red soils and sun-filled exposures.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The estate's top wine, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon ADAMVS features ample oak, showing plenty of brown sugar and mocha accents on the nose, set against a backdrop of ripe, dark fruit, such as cassis and blueberries. It's full-bodied and rich—even velvety—in texture, with a long, lingering finish. While this wine seems almost over the top in terms of its ripeness and concentration, what it really needs is some time in the cellar to settle down and evolve into something more savory and elegant. Try it after 2025.
Rating: 96+
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Today Cabernet Sauvignon is the star of this part of Napa’s rugged, eastern hills, but Zinfandel was responsible for giving the Howell Mountain growing area its original fame in the late 1800s.
Winemaking in Howell Mountain was abandoned during Prohibition, and wasn’t reawakened until the arrival of Randy Dunn, a talented winemaker famous for the success of Caymus in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early eighties, he set his sights on the Napa hills and subsequently astonished the wine world with a Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. Shortly thereafter Howell Mountain became officially recognized as the first sub-region of Napa Valley (1983).
With vineyards at 1,400 to 2,000 feet in elevation, they predominantly sit above the fog line but the days in Howell Mountain remain cooler than those in the heart of the valley, giving the grapes a bit more time on the vine.
The Howell Mountain AVA includes 1,000 acres of vineyards interspersed by forestlands in the Vaca Mountains. The soils, shallow and infertile with good drainage, are volcanic ash and red clay and produce highly concentrated berries with thick skins. The resulting wines are full of structure and potential to age.
Today Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petite Sirah thrive in this sub-appellation, as well as its founding variety, Zinfandel.