Outpost True Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
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Robert
Parker
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
As rugged a site as this is there’s always plushness in the finished wine that sets it apart from all other Howell Mountain wines Outpost has tried. The minerality and floral components from the past several years are there even as the fruit elements continue to darken in the wine. This remains the most unique wine produced at the winery every year and a worthy successor to the great 2007 and 2008 editions. Made with 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon True Vineyard is a much more opulent wine that in many ways is less typical of Howell Mountain. It is an especially seamless Cabernet Sauvignon loaded with dark fruit, flowers and mint, all of which are supported by insistent veins of minerality. All of the flavors build effortlessly to the muscular, inviting finish.
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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.