Winemaker Notes
Ark is gorgeously rich, with a deep ruby/purple color and crème de cassis aromas intermixed with some graphite, licorice, fresh tobacco, espresso, and spice. Dense and massive, with rich, opulent, structured layers of mocha, blackberry, black currant and plum. The wine expresses supple tannins and beautiful concentration, and the flavors run deep and gain momentum on the finish.
All Hundred Acre wines are made by sorting the fruit berry by berry, fermenting in small French oak fermenters, and long aging in the finest barriques. The secret to Hundred Acre is no compromise and no detail overlooked, ever.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon doesn’t get any more sexy and opulent than the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard, which is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon brought up in new French oak. A massive, opulent wine by any measure, it reveals a deep purple color as well as an insane bouquet of blueberries, cassis, white truffle, forest floor, and Asian spices. These all carry to a perfectly balanced wine that has the extroverted character of the 2007 vintage yet stays perfectly balanced, has a pure, layered, multi-dimensional texture, sweet tannins, and a finish that just won’t quit. This Napa Valley masterpiece is drinking brilliant now at age 12 and will unquestionably keep for another two decades or more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard is medium garnet colored and comes bounding out of the glass with exuberant Chinese five spice, dried rose petals, candied violets and cast iron pan scents over a core of kirsch, cassis and blackberry compote with mincemeat pie and tilled soil nuances. The palate is full-bodied, rich, achingly plush and completely packed with nuanced black fruits, delivering wonderfully satiny tannins and freshness throughout the epically long, exquisitely poised finish. Pure class.
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Wine Spectator
A firm band of tannins is wrapped around a chewy core of flavors that extend from green olive and herb to mineral, graphite and dried berry flavors. No disputing its muscular profile and chewy tannins, but there's also a wealth of dense flavors to enjoy down the line.
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.