Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is prodigious. There is something here that reminds me of a top-notch La Mission Haut-Brion, whether it is the subtle charcoal/burning embers character, the blue and black fruits, the hint of espresso roast, the saturated purple color, or the full-bodied, powerful flavors. This is an extraordinary, massively endowed wine, but with great precision and purity. Forget it for 5 years and drink it over the following 25+.
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Wine Enthusiast
Textbook Howell Mountain Cabernet, classic in the volume of its tannins and the intensity of its fruit. Massive and delicious in blackberry, currant, dark chocolate and oak flavors that sink down into the palate and stay there. So good now, it's hard not to drink, but should develop bottle complexity over the next 10 years.
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Wine Spectator
Bold, rich, intense and powerful, yet in a graceful, stylistic manner, with a taut mix of loamy earth, dried berry, black licorice, cranberry, dried herb and mineral flavors that coat the palate and retain their focus on a long, lingering aftertaste. Best from 2011 through 2019. 1,488 cases 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.