O’Shaughnessy: Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Howell Mountain 2000 – 2015
BY STEPHEN TANZER |
O’Shaughnessy Estate is the project of Minnesotan Betty O’Shaughnessy, who prior to her Napa Valley adventure had a career in real estate investment and development followed by a stint as owner and teacher of a cooking school in Minneapolis. After falling for Napa Valley, she purchased a parcel of land in Oakville in 1990 where she built a home, then bought additional vineyards over the next decade on Howell Mountain (beginning in 1996) and Mount Veeder (in 2000). O’Shaughnessy's Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is actually a unique blend that can feature up to seven Bordeaux varieties.
O'Shaughnessy's Rancho del Oso vineyard on Howell Mountain
The Estate’s Early Years
Beginning in 1997, O’Shaughnessy quickly planted 22 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and another 2 of Merlot on her 60-acre Rancho del Oso property on Howell Mountain (the vineyard had been named by its workers for a black bear that occasionally visited the vines). She had the help and direction of Beringer’s long-time vineyard manager Bob Steinhauer, and used vine cuttings from Beringer’s own Howell Mountain vineyard, formerly known as Tre Colline (renamed Steinhauer Ranch in 2003). During the first ten years of fruit production, O’Shaughnessy sold Rancho del Oso grapes to Beringer, but that contract expired in 2009.
In 1999, O’Shaughnessy hired winemaker Sean Capiaux, who had previously worked at Jordan, Pine Ridge and Peter Michael. Capiaux has made every vintage for O’Shaughnessy and now also serves as the winery’s president. The same year, O’Shaughnessy purchased the Amphitheater vineyard, adjacent to Rancho del Oso. Under the direction of Capiaux, she planted 17 acres of vines in this new site (out of a total of 40), the majority Cabernet Sauvignon but also including 6 acres of 7 additional historical Bordeaux blending varieties – Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Malbec, Carmenère, Saint Macaire and Gros Verdot.
O'Shaughnessy's Amphitheater Vineyard
Rancho del Oso, which today is virtually all Cabernet Sauvignon, features softer, porous tufa rock as well as a lot of hard lava rock that had to be dynamited before the vines could be planted. Amphitheater has lava rock and tufa as well as iron-rich volcanic decay. Both vineyards are quite exposed to the sun, essentially west-facing at the top of the hill. O’Shaughnessy further expanded her holdings on Howell Mountain by buying the 20-acre Osprey Vineyard (named after a family of ospreys that make their home there) in 2012 and planting 5 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon vines in 2014. She now has about 43 producing acres of vines on Howell Mountain, at a high average altitude of 1,800 feet.
O’Shaughnessy was a trailblazer on Howell Mountain, as there were only a handful of quality producers in the mid-1990s, among them Dunn Vineyards, La Jota and Beringer (on its Bancroft Ranch property). But a grape rush soon followed, as the region’s volcanic soils and its warm, dry weather, not to mention its high altitude above the fog line and its long sunshine hours from early morning until evening during the summer, proved to be ideal for producing robust red wines. Howell Mountain, by the way, having been established in 1983, is the second oldest AVA in Napa Valley after Carneros.
O’Shaughnessy Estate is the project of Minnesotan Betty O’Shaughnessy, who prior to her Napa Valley adventure had a career in real estate investment and development followed by a stint as owner and teacher of a cooking school in Minneapolis. After falling for Napa Valley, she purchased a parcel of land in Oakville in 1990 where she built a home, then bought additional vineyards over the next decade on Howell Mountain (beginning in 1996) and Mount Veeder (in 2000). O’Shaughnessy's Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is actually a unique blend that can feature up to seven Bordeaux varieties.
