Winemaker Notes
This 100% unfiltered Single Vineyard Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is a towering majestic wine. Dark berries, cherry liqueur, smoke, licorice, plums, tobacco leaf and crème de cassis, open up in this alluring Cabernet Sauvignon that melds together ripeness and structure. On the palate, rich and powerful, yet massively tannic with a long silky finish; this wine is a tremendous example of Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. Best of all, it won’t need decades in the cellar to start drinking well.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
This shows a strong savory thread, along with pepper, tar and juniper notes leading the way for a dense, chewy core of black currant and blackberry preserve flavors. Offers a distinct profile, with a thunderhead of tannins on the finish. Perhaps a bit ruggedly brooding for some, but worth waiting out in the cellar. Best from 2021 through 2032.
-
Wine Enthusiast
This brawny and robust wine shows aromas and flavors of graphite, cedar and violet revolving around a concentrated core of black fruit. A breath of tannins covers the palate. It finishes structured and tight, suggesting cellaring through 2026.
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.