Today we are going to California to drink one of the iconic Howell Mountain wines- Dunn Vineyards. For all you Led Zeppelin fans out there, I have an aching in my heart for a pure, elegant, California Cab, and finding one is not as hard as it seems.
Many California Cabs- like Caymus- are known for being full bodied, jammy, and syrupy, like sweetened cough syrup. Unfortunately that is a style many California wines are known for, and to me it’s just nasty, like being punched in the mouth with a bag of powdered sugar.
The jamminess comes from a warm climate, with the grapes staying on the vines so long they turn into sugar balls (as grapes ripen, sugar increases and acid decreases). During fermentation, the yeast literally “eat” the sugar and turn it into alcohol, so the more sugar there is, the higher the alcohol content of the finished wine…some California Cabs have as much as 15.5% abv. Sometimes there is so much sugar, “Residual Sugar,” (RS), left in the wine, that the final product can taste a little sweet. Or alot.
Some people may like that in their wines, but I don’t. You just don’t get much change and evolution in a wine like that as you go through the bottle- it starts jammy, oaky, and syrupy and stays jammy, oaky, and syrupy. I don’t mind high alcohol wines- I love Amarones- but thick, slow moving, ponderous wines are just a crushing bore. I like wines that are pure and elegant, not quite as heavy, while still maintaining some heft, wines that deliver both power and nuance. Wine can be both bold and subtle at the same time, a rare treat for the senses.
That’s the Dunn Howell Mountain. Because of the high elevation and cooler nighttime temperatures, the grapes maintain acid, an important component in “freshness.” And because they don’t leave the grapes on the vines forever, they harvest them before they turn into sugar balls. The result is an elegant, pure Cabernet Sauvignon with wonderful rounded fresh black fruits (blackberry, black plum, black cherry- you know, the fruit that’s in every Cab) that just float in your mouth and on your tongue. No jamminess, no cough syrup, no sweetened grape juice, just a fantastic Cab.
But is it magical? For $220 a bottle, you would hope so, but you never know until you go through a bottle. Today I am going to drink the 2019 Dunn Howell Mountain, and wines from the 2019 Napa Vintage are drinking very well now…this one has a definite chance.
2019 Dunn Vineyards Howell Mountain
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