Dunn: Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 1985-2014

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | DECEMBER 3, 2024

I have always been drawn to archetypes. Reference points. Wines that are standard bearers for their variety, appellation and/or style. Perhaps that is a vestige of my musical training, but there is something about classics that has always spoken to me. In Napa Valley, few wines embody those qualities more fully than Dunn’s Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain. This tasting provided a fabulous opportunity to revisit a wide range of vintages going all the way back to the 1980s.

About the Tasting

This retrospective of the flagship Dunn Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain at Quality Meats was held at the inaugural edition of our Napa in the City event in March 2022. The explosion of noteworthy new releases in all regions around the world means that finding time and space for articles such as this one is increasingly a challenge. When it comes to older wines, all of our critics and I taste far more wines in any year than we could ever write up fully, with the detail and context that is at the heart of what we strive to provide at Vinous. I hope readers will appreciate this report in the spirit of “better late than never.” Mea culpa.

Wines were opened about two hours before service and double decanted. The team at Quality Meats did a fine job with the wines, working in a tight space and in conditions that were challenging given the sheer number of bottles and my own obsessive requirements on service. The original program spanned vintages 1985 through 2014. I chose 2014 as the youngest vintage simply because the Howell Mountain Cabernet typically needs at least several years in bottle to start showing well.

We arranged the wines around thematic flights rather than chronologically, as I have long felt this approach allows guests to taste wines with similar attributes side by side regardless of the actual vintages. The 2013 Trailer Vineyard and 2017 El Camino were last-minute additions. I also include notes on the 2002, 2003 and 2004 Howell Mountain, all from magnum, which were part of our program on the following day. 

Most of the bottles were purchased from a longtime friend of the Dunn family who had owned and cellared the wines since release. Some of the newer releases, including the 2004, 2003 and 2002 Howell Mountain, plus the 2013 Trailer and 2017 El Camino, were sourced from the winery. The 1990, 1989 and 1985 were all from my cellar and date back to the era when the estate offered library wines to their mailing list. I can still remember the time when the yearly offering arrived by mail and orders were accepted by the case rather than by the bottle!

Harvest time at Dunn Vineyards

A Little Historical Background

Randy Dunn is one of the leading figures in the history of Howell Mountain and Napa Valley more broadly. Among his many achievements, Dunn helped draw the Howell Mountain AVA. Perhaps even more importantly, from his very first vintage in 1979, Randy Dunn has consistently turned out some of the most powerful, structured Cabernets in all of Napa Valley. Beyond its ability to age gracefully over many years and decades, Dunn’s Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is arguably the quintessential wine for the AVA, an appellation Dunn helped establish, both formally and with his brilliant Cabernets. 

Over the decades, Randy Dunn acquired a reputation and mystique for formidably tannic Cabernets that take decades to come around. That may have been the case in the 1980s and 1990s, but I find that less true today. To be sure, these are classically built, structured Cabernets full of mountain tannin that are built to age but opening a Dunn Cabernet young these days is not a crime, even though most wines will start hitting their prime around age 20, give or take.

Randy Dunn next to one of his many vintage firetrucks, all of which are operational and ready to be used if required