Dunn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 (1.5L)

98 VM / 98 JD / 96 WS

#6 Wine Spectator Top 100 2023

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is outrageously beautiful. A wine of extraordinary purity, the 2019 dazzles right out of the gate. The tannins are nearly silky for a young Howell Mountain Cabernet. Red/purplish fruit, lavender, spice, rose petal and pomegranate all build in this sumptuous, explosive Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2019 is one of the most elegant Cabernets I have tasted here, and that is saying something What a wine! - Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media

The Vaca and Mayacamas mountains that line the sides of Napa Valley produce some of the region’s most distinctive bottlings. Case in point is Dunn Vineyards. Randy Dunn, who started making wine in 1975 at Caymus, pitched his own tent atop Howell Mountain in 1979, which at the time was Napa’s viticultural Siberia. Time has proven him more than prescient. Randy’s son Mike, who joined in 1999, handles the winemaking. Randy still calls the pick date in the vineyards on the Howell Mountain estate, which totals 40 contiguous acres. The Dunn Cabernet remains one of Napa Valley’s longest-lived wines for the cellar. After a 32-month élevage, the wine is densely fruited with grippy tannins, but polished and pure at the same time.

I would put the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain up against both the 2013 and 2016 as a potential reference point vintage for this cuv e. Checking in at 13.9% alcohol and revealing a deep purple hue as well as incredible aromatics of pure cr me de cassis, scorched earth, graphite, bouquet garni, and hints of plum, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness carrying ultra-fine tannins, a flawless sense of balance and purity, and incredible length. It has plenty of classic Howell Mountain structure, but it's far from the beast of a wine these were 10 to 15 years ago, and it clearly offers ample pleasure today. Nevertheless, it's going to benefit from 5-7 years of bottle age and, I suspect, evolve nicely over the following 20-30 years. Tasted twice with consistent results, hats off to Mike Dunn for this brilliant wine.-Jeb Dunnuck

Lushly fruited, this sends waves of crushed plum, boysenberry compote and blackberry paste out from the core, with a strong undercurrent of cast iron and smoldering tobacco to boot. Grippy and dense, but with a sense of polish and a note of purity in the guise of a pretty violet echo. Best from 2025 through 2040.—James Molesworth, Wine Spectator