Dunn Vineyards - Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 2018 (1.5L)
Price: $375.00
| Producer | Dunn Vineyards |
| Country | USA |
| Region | California |
| Varietal | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| Vintage | 2018 |
| Sku | 5772 |
| Size | 1.5L |
Vinous: 97 Points
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is elegant deep and classy. Inky dark purplish fruit savory herbs menthol licorice and spice. The purity of the fruit is remarkable today. There is plenty of youthful Howell Mountain tannin so readers will have to be patient. Bright floral accents lift the red/purplish berry fruit nicely. This is such an expressive alluring Cabernet.
vWine Spectator: 96 Points
Ripe and very juicy with a youthfully compact set of plum boysenberry and blackberry compote flavors wrapped in licorice and violet notes. This is both racy and grippy showing serious power but with the freshness and drive to match. Delivers a long iron accent that scores the fruit through the finish. Best from 2024 through 2040. 3523 cases made.
Wine Advocate: 95+ Points
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is a typically long-term proposition coated in dusty tannins and cedary oak. It will take time for the cassis blueberry and slightly pine-scented backbone of this wine to emerge as for the moment it's almost difficult to taste. Yes the concentration is present the tannins are almost silky-ripe but the structure of this medium to full-bodied wine is unassailable. Hands off for at least five years and probably more to judge by how past vintages have evolved. Somehow Dunn fell off the radar of my predecessor after the 2015 vintage. While I didn't have time to backtrack through all of the missed years I was able to taste the 2017s and 2018s during my visit to the family compound on Howell Mountain. Mike Dunn has taken over most of the winemaking responsibilities from his stepfather Randy Dunn but Randy is still around and constantly tinkering. "I end up spending a lot of my time in the barn fixing stuff" he said. Randy got his start as a crush hand at Caymus working for Chuck Wagner in 1975. "I learned a lot at Caymus" he said. "At the time they had a German winemaker who specialized in Riesling. He didn't know much about red winemaking." Dunn's first vintage under his own label was in 1979?the first few vintages were bottled at Caymus?and in 1985 he left to devote his full time to Dunn. Back in 1982 Randy purchased bulk wine for his first Napa Valley bottling "I paid $12.50 per gallon and sold it for $12.50 per bottle" said Dunn. But the supply of good bulk wine dried up around 1990 and he started to purchase grapes. Mike Dunn describes himself as a bicycle geek rather than a wine nerd but he came back to help Randy with the wine business in 1999 after his sister Jennifer Dunn died of bacterial meningitis while attending Chico State. Younger sister Kristina Dunn-Buchanan helps manage the office and hospitality side of things. These remain stubbornly backward classic renderings of Napa Cabernet always reined in?sometimes through the use of technology?and always age-worthy starting to really show their true value after a decade (sometimes more) of aging. I still have the 1996s bought to commemorate our oldest son's birth year hidden away in my cellar with no worries about how they're developing. Published: May 31 2022
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