Winemaker Notes
On the nose, this stunning wine offers a bevy of mountain-fruit aromas including sweet baking spices, black raspberry, currant, and blackberry, with hints of anise, clove, and fresh mint adding nuance and complexity. On the palate it is robust and generous, echoing the aromas in waves of ripe dark berries and spice, with firm tannins and dusty minerality carrying the flavors to a remarkably long, lush finish.
Blend: 92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
So complex and beautiful now with blackcurrants, olives, bark, and oyster shells. Full to medium body. Resolved, velvety and juicy tannins. Then turns firm and beautiful. 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot. Drinkable now but will age beautifully.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Duckhorn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is a reward for the senses. TASTING NOTES: This wine proudly shows the pedigree of its AVA with its aromas and flavors of bold black fruits, savory spices, and oaky notes that sail long into the wine's finish. Enjoy it with a well-spiced, oven-baked leg of lamb. (Tasted: March 23, 2023, San Francisco, CA)
-
Wine Enthusiast
A heady jumble of new oak, turned earth, herbs and cranberries waft from the glass before this boisterous, oaky and full-bodied wine hits the palate with red cherries, cranberries and new leather. It is firmly tannic, needs time to develop.
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.