2013 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon

More dense and powerful than the 2012, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is deep purple/plum-hued and has an incredible bouquet of darker, currant-like fruits as well as tobacco, chocolate, crushed stone, truffle, and earth. It needs plenty of air to show at its best and is full-bodied on the palate, with ripe, building tannins, serious mid-palate density, and a great finish. You could put this in a blind lineup of First Growth Bordeaux and it would hold its own. It's superb today, with enough fat and richness to buffer its structure, but it has another 30 years of longevity as well.

Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is a little closed at this stage, offering glimpses at fresh blackcurrants, blackberry pie and crushed black plums with nuances of cedar chest, underbrush, black truffles, charcuterie and espresso. Medium to full-bodied, it packs in the muscular fruit, with very firm, ripe, grainy tannins and plenty of freshness, finishing long with many expressive earth layers.

Dark red-ruby. Black fruits, cocoa nibs and licorice on the very primary nose. Thick, dense and sappy, conveying a bulletproof impression to its hugely concentrated flavors of black plum, licorice, minerals and bitter chocolate. This remarkable if brooding and almost painfully primary wine tastes like a barrel sample today yet it possesses the inherent balance to give pleasure sooner than some other recent vintages of Dunn Howell Mountain. Best today on the explosive finish, where the substantial, late-arriving, utterly palate-drenching tannins are totally cushioned by the wine's fruit extract. I did not taste this bottle next to the 2014 but my impression is that it's plusher and even deeper. An incredible Cabernet in the making, with the energy for a very long life in bottle. Still, I give the '10 a slight edge for its complexity and sweetness. With aeration, this wine tightened up considerably and showed even more power and spine. (13.9% alcohol)