Winemaker Notes
The 2021 estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignon provides a beautiful complexity, elegance and structure we have come to expect from our mountain fruit. Aromas of dark black fruit and bramble highlight the Cabernet Sauvignon at the heart of the wine. They integrate a touch of Malbec to provide mouth filling notes of cassis and boysenberry, and to develop a softness in the tannins, making this a wonderfully round wine. It has a perfectly balanced structure with well-integrated toasted oak that offers subtle notes of cocoa on the lengthy, pleasing finish.
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Malbec, 1% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Malbec, and 1% Petit Verdot was aged 22 months in 80% new French oak barrels. Grapes come from Hess's Veeder Hills Vineyard atop its Mount Veeder estate. A full-bodied wine teeming with bright and fragrant wild herbs, spearmint, and spring flowers balanced by a more robust palate expression backed by dense and compact tannins laced with dark cocoa, toffee, and espresso bean, finishing with bold dark berry fruit, sea salt, and stony minerality.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Hess Collection Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder Estate Grown comes mostly from above the fog line, offering classic mountain Cabernet aromas of sage, bay leaf, cassis and blueberry. It's full-bodied, plush, concentrated, nicely structured and layered, with a long, elegant finish. Made under the watchful eye of consultant Celia Welch, this is one of the winery's standout bottlings.
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Wine Spectator
A distinctive version, with a mulled edge to its mix of rather ripe fig, boysenberry and blackberry compote flavors, which pick up hints of melted licorice, walnut husk and licorice root through the slightly burly finish. If you don't mind a rustic edge. Best from 2026 through 2038.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder is upfront and fleshy, with lots of classic darker, almost blue fruits in a plush, medium to full-bodied, chocolaty Cabernet that has classic Mt. Veeder tobacco and wild herb-like nuances. It's beautifully balanced and will shine through 2033.
For over 40 years, The Hess Collection has been producing complex, elegant wines sourced from estate vineyards high on Mount Veeder and in the far reaches of the Napa Valley. It is from these rugged landscapes that The Hess Collection winemaking team crafts exceptional luxury wines.
A pioneer by nature, Donald Hess was determined to defy convention and pursue winemaking at elevation. In 1978, he established The Hess Collection Winery on the site of one of the region’s oldest wineries on Mount Veeder. Although few in Napa Valley were cultivating vines at elevation, Donald Hess believed the volcanic slopes of Mount Veeder provided the ideal combination of soils and microclimates to yield elegant wines with rich, complex flavors.
Today, the next generation of The Hess family continues Donald’s legacy at the winery's home on Mount Veeder.
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.
Centered at the peak for which it is named, Mount Veeder is Napa’s largest sub-AVA. But even though the entire appellation spreads over 16,000 acres, vineyards cover a mere 1,000. Scattered among Douglas firs and bristlecone pines, Mount Veeder vineyards extend south from the upper elevations of the Mayacamas Mountains—the highest point at 2,400 feet—to the border of the Carneros region. Less than 25 wineries produce wine from Mount Veeder fruit.
Winemaking began early in this appellation. In 1864, Captain Stelham Wing presented the first Mount Veeder wine to the Napa County Fair; it came from today’s Wing Canyon Vineyard. Prohibition, of course, halted winemaking and viticulture wasn’t revitalized until the founding of Mayacamas Vineyards in 1951 and Bernstein Vineyards in 1964.
The Bernstein Vineyards was actually home to the first Petit Verdot in California, planted in 1975. Today most of the Petit Verdot in Napa Valley originates from this vineyard.
Rocky volcanic clay and ancient seabed matter dominate Mount Veeder soils—perfect for Bordeaux varieties. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot enjoy spectacular success. These varieties produce wines rich in brambly blackberry and black cherry fruit with herbal and floral aromatics. Structures are moderate to assertive and wines have great staying power.
Chardonnay from Mount Veeder is lush, full and balanced mineral and fresh citrus flavors.