Winemaker Notes
Blend: 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10.5% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 4.5% Petit Verdot, 2% Malbec
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A profoundly aromatic nose of mocha and beautiful blackberry fruit. These characters are also shown on the palate, backed up by forward tannins and bright acidity. Everything about it is generous.
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Wine Enthusiast
This full-bodied, concentrated wine shows plenty of power in its bringing together of the variety with smaller percentages of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. With a huge presence on the palate that lingers and stays in one's brain, it shows a reductive quality of toasted oak along with black pepper, bark and leather saddle,. It's a wine to enjoy from a giant leather chaise, if possible. Cellar until 2023.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon from Howell Mountain is the largest cuvee (2,675 cases) and a blend of all five Bordeaux varieties: 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot and Malbec. It’s a beauty. Opaque purple, with notes of licorice, charcoal, lead-pencil shavings, blackcurrants and spice, the wine is full-bodied, opulent, lavishly rich and pure, with sweet tannin and a long finish. This wine is approachable now, but promises to age beautifully for 20-25 years.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The longstanding La Jota Vineyard—the winery championed the Howell Mountain AVA long before it become famous—is always a part of any discussion regarding high-quality Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. I recall discovering the wines in the early 1980s and finding them quite impressive, though sometimes uneven. In recent years, the wines performed very well. The 2013 is robust and well-built. Exhibiting black currants, rich earth, and bold tannins, La Jota is all about producing the most classic of wines from this region. The smooth tannins in the finish allow for its slightly earlier drinkability. (Tasted: October 24, 2016, San Francisco, CA
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.