Winemaker Notes
Blend: 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, 2% Malbec
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The flagship 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve checks in as 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, and 2% Malbec that was brought up in new barrels. Coming from the Estate and 13th Vineyard on Howell Mountain, it's a beautiful 2022 with a gorgeous nose of blackcurrants, bouquet garni (thyme, rosemary), iron, baking spices, and lead pencil shavings. With full-bodied richness, a deep, layered, concentrated mouthfeel, and ripe, nicely integrated tannins, it's a clear success that readers can put up with the crème de la crème of the vintage. It's one of the few 2022s that you could put side by side with a 2018, 2019, or 2020 and have no issues. Drink bottles over the coming two decades or so.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A blend of selected barrels from the Cade Estate Vineyard and 13th Vineyard, the 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve delivers aromas of scorched pine bark, mocha and slightly resiny pine notes, backed by layers of blackberries and blueberries. Almost at the quality level of the 13th Vineyard bottling for two-thirds the price and potentially longer-lived, it's full-bodied, creamy, plush, concentrated and tannic but fully ripe and supple, with a long, softly dusty finish. The sample bottle I tasted from was sealed with a screw cap.
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Vinous
The 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is deep and layered, with notable mid-palate depth and fine balance. Black cherry, plum, spice, lavender and mocha build nicely with a bit of time in the glass. The 2022 spent 20 months in barrel. Impeccably done.
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Wine Spectator
Dark and winey, with ample dark currant, plum sauce and melted licorice notes rolling through, though there’s a more than subtle balsam wood edge that comes through on the frankly toasted finish as the fruit loses a little steam. This nonetheless qualifies as a success in this vintage. Drink now through 2032.
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.