Winemaker Notes
The 2016 Ph.D. is the pinnacle of our reserve wine series. It is 90% Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Napa Valley Malbec. This is a muscular wine that offers a bounty of both fruit and earth driven aromatics. Bursts of black currant and blackberry fruit leap from the glass. Notes of chocolate, graphite, and wild fruit layer themselves together seamlessly. Cocoa and hits of oak grace the palate as tiers of rich, exotic flavors unfold, providing a satisfying backbone.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Mostly cabernet sauvignon from a high-elevation vineyard on Howell Mountain, The PhD contains two percent malbec and three percent merlot from the valley floor, pointing up some bright raspberry-like highlights over the black tannins. It’s mouthcoating and dense when first opened, needing plenty of air to show itself with more clarity. For the cellar.
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.