Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2014
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Jeb
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Winemaker Notes
Inky blue/purplish fruit, graphite, lavender, grilled herbs and smoke run through the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon (Howell Mountain). The 2014 has all the Dunn signatures in its flavor profile, but in the mid-weight style of the year. This is an especially restrained, young wine for Dunn with far less of the tannic heft that readers familiar with these wines are likely to expect.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Notes of black cherry, cassis, graphite, incense, spice and rich soil preface an authoritative, intense wine with a lovely chassis of fine but firm tannins, underpinned by vibrant acidity: quintessential Dunn Howell Mountain. Under Mike Dunn's thoughtful stewardship, the family's wines have become more refined; largely thanks to more carefully chosen barrels. But while this wine may be less forbidding in its youth than the vintages of the 1990s, let it sleep for a decade to reveal its potential complexity.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain has an incredibly evocative nose of crème de cassis, plum preserves and fresh wild blueberries with touches of chocolate mints, tilled soil, yeast extract, chargrill and scorched earth. Medium to full-bodied, it fills the mouth with fresh, crunchy black fruit, framed by firm, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long with bags of energy.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is a darker, dense, meaty wine offering lots of darker currant fruits, chocolate, cedar pencil, truffly earth, and smoked tobacco on the nose. This all carries to a full-bodied, round, expansive Cabernet that reminds me of a top 2009 Médoc with its supple, sweet tannins, beautiful mid-palate density, and outstanding length. It opens up with air and now, at age 8, offers considerable pleasure, yet will continue gaining complexity and nuance over the coming 4-6 years, and have a lengthy prime drink window of upwards of two decades. Best after 2025
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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.