Winemaker Notes
The 2021 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon has aromas of boysenberry, black cherry, blueberry, clove, graham cracker, cola, and crushed rose petals. In the palate are flavors of crushed blackberries, raspberry coolie, milk chocolate covered black cherries, caramel, cocoa powder, anise, and vanilla extract. The tannin structure in this wine is both powerful and refined. There is a length and persistence to this wine that is what makes this vintage of CADE Reserve very alluring and age worthy. The wine finishes with flavors of candied blue and black fruit, fresh plums, and espresso. This wine is a blend of the best blocks, best barrels, and overall, a wine that reflects the best of Howell Mountain.
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Malbec, 5% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is a tiny selection of the best barrels, and it's another just about perfect 2021, offering a saturated purple hue as well as an awesome bouquet of black and blue fruits, spicy oak, graphite, and iron, with a kiss of Graves-like scorched earth. With full-bodied richness, a deep, layered, awesome mid-palate, and building tannins, this classic, age-worthy Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon deserves a solid 5-7 years of bottle age and will see its 30th birthday in fine form.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A selection of the winery's best barrels, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve offers up hints of mocha and dark chocolate set against a backdrop of blueberry fruit. Some subtle herbal nuances creep in as well—sage and thyme—also cedar and perhaps even pine needles. It's a complex array of flavors and aromas delivered by a full-bodied, richly concentrated wine that's never hard, just plush and velvety from start to finish.
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Vinous
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is a dense, full-throttle Howell Mountain Cabernet. Inky dark fruit, liquified rocks, bittersweet chocolate, menthol and lavender infuse the 2021 with tremendous depth and intensity. Here, too, winemaker Danielle Cyrot has done a terrific job in taming the formidable Howell Mountain tannins that are present in so many wines.
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.