Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lastly, the tiny production 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon True Vineyard is 100% varietal that spent 20 months in 90% new French oak. It boasts an insanely good bouquet of ripe blue fruits, white flowers, incense, and menthol. This is followed by a layered, exotic, thrillingly full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon that has a gorgeous mid-palate density, massive structure, no hard edges, and a great, great finish. This is a quintessential Howell Mountain Cabernet that embodies everything you could want from this terroir and it’s going to have 2-3 decades of overall longevity.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon True Vineyard opens with expressive crushed black currants, black cherries and warm plums notes with fragrant touches of chocolate-covered cherries, baking spices, incense and potpourri. Medium to full-bodied, it packs in the ripe, rich, spice-laced black fruits, supported by velvety tannins and wonderful freshness, finishing long and layered. 310 cases were made.
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.