Duckhorn Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
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Spirits
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Wong
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Winemaker Notes
A wine of power and grandeur, this mountain-grown Cabernet displays beautiful aromas of huckleberry, black cherry, brambly blackberry, and plum, as well as notes of savory tobacco leaf and brown sugar. On the palate, the voluptuous fruit flavors are supported by robust mountain tannins and an age-worthy structure, with notes of candied red cherry, baking spice, cigar box, and herbs adding layered complexity to a remarkably long finish.
Blend: 92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
We tasted the 2016 and 2017 vintages of this wine side-by-side, not knowing they were related. With an addi-tional year of age, the ’16 is beginning to show its elegance, the wine’s black-currant richness lending depth and power as if cap- tured at a peak moment of ripeness. The fruit is fragrant and savory, taking on scents of fine cigar tobacco as it blossoms over the course of several days. a pretty wine with the underlying intensity and structure of Howell Mountain cabernet. This should age well for ten years or more.
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Decanter
Dense plum and blackcurrant nose. Sumptuous fruit on the attack with volume and concentration, fine depth of flavour and polished tannins. Drinking Window 2020 - 2035
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2016 Duckhorn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon shows how quality winemakers and wine companies can tame the beast. While others have produced very tannic wines from this AVA, Duckhorn Vineyards has made one of the most delicious and well-balanced Cabs from this spot. The 2016 vintage is an excellent effort. TASTING NOTES: This wine brings bright pomegranate, black fruits, anise, and oak to the fore—and everything plays well together. Grill a Porterhouse and enjoy! (Tasted: January 29, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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Founded by Dan and Margaret Duckhorn in 1976, Duckhorn Vineyards has been crafting classic Napa Valley wines for nearly 40 years. This winemaking tradition has grown to include seven meticulously farmed Estate vineyards, located throughout the various microclimates of the Napa Valley. Focused on quality and consistency, these Estate vineyards are an essential element in making wines of distinction. Pioneering and perfecting Merlot as a premium varietal, Duckhorn Vineyards now makes several elegant Merlot and distinctive Cabernet Sauvignon bottlings that showcase its premium vineyard sites. Duckhorn Vineyards has been named one of the “Top 100 Wineries” in the world eight times by Wine & Spirits, and the 2014 Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Merlot Three Palms Vineyard was named the “2017 Wine of the Year,” topping Wine Spectator’s annual list of the world’s “Top 100 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.