Winemaker Notes
The 2014 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon reveals a deep, garnet color with an intense bouquet of ripe blackberry, maraschino liqueur, and charred wood. As the wine aerates, intriguing notes of baking spice, dark chocolate, and bay leaf are revealed. The flavorful palate is concentrated yet elegant, layered with black fruits and fine structured tannins that extend to a long refreshing finish. Upon release, decant this beauty before serving to unlock all it has to offer.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
This reserve-level wine offers impressive extraction and concentration within a full-bodied, complex package of tobacco and sage. The fruit is classically mountain-grown in its intensity, black and liqueur-like, with touches of coconut and dark chocolate.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2014 Ladera Reserve Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon shows a smooth and elevated palate presence. TASTING NOTES: This wine brings excellent aromas and flavors of black fruit and oak to the fore. Pair it with grilled pork chops atop a bed of red leaf and arugula. (Tasted: December 13, 2020, 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.