Winemaker Notes
Aromas of blackberry and cassis fruit, baking spices, and violets spring from the glass. The palate is full bodied with layers of ripe plums, tar, licorice and the classic Hershey minerality. The wine is dense and structured as you would expect from Howell Mountain. The finish lingers with dark chocolate, savory herbs. This wine will grow in complexity as it ages. Best enjoyed 2018 through 2030.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Two wines that I did not see from bottle have turned out to be close to perfection. The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Hershey Vineyard has unbelievable richness, a profound opaque purple color and enormous notes of lead pencil shavings intermixed with blackberry liqueur, white flowers and crushed rock. The wine is full-bodied and dense with moderately high tannin, but the tannin is integrated and silky. This is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and look for it to evolve for 30-35 years.
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.