Winemaker Notes
A beautiful expression of mountain-grown Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine displays alluring aromas of wild blackberry, boysenberry and raspberry, as well as hints of holiday baking spices and cocoa powder. Bold and full-bodied on the palate, with firm, fine grained tannins, this impeccably structured wine offers lush, flowing flavors of black cherry and cassis that carry through to a long, jammy finish.
Blend: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is an intensely thick, leathery red from a mountain site, with the addition of 14% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot in the blend. It offers a powerful grip on the palate, and unleashes deep, jammy flavors of black cherry, berry and cocoa powder.
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Wine & Spirits
If you appreciate long-lived mountain wines, you might enjoy tasting this wine in its youth. Dan Veit of Carbon Beach Club in Malibu described it as “an umami tsunami,” noting the squid-ink blackness of the tannins. Those tannins are powerful, marked by the drought, as if you can feel the vines respiring moisture in an arid place. They brick off the wine’s black fruit with a wall of coffee and cola scents, but there’s a fresher, foresty tone leading toward complexity. Veit suggested cellaring it for a long time, then drinking it slowly, with venison.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Duckhorn Vineyards, one of Napa Valley's most established producer of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon continues to produce some of the best wines from the Napa Valley. The 2014 Howell Mountain Cabernet is as solid as they come. TASTING NOTES: This wine is packed and fulfilling, yet well-balanced and refined. Its aromas and flavors of red and black fruits and nicely joined with a hint of oak. Pair it with a grilled ribeye. (Tasted: February 16, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.