1996 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley)

In the very late growing seasons of '99 and '98, Randy Dunn dropped a good third of his crop in order to ripen the rest. "If you didn't drop crop in '99 and '98 you didn't get it ripe," he told me. "We didn't have the normal inversion layer in the early fall of either year, so it got cooler than usual at night and we often had fog in the mornings, like it normally is down below. So in both years we ended up picking into November. "Still, he maintains, vintage variation is far less pronounced on Howell Mountain than on the valley floor. "On the hillsides up here, it's much harder to tell the vintages apart," says Dunn. "It was much easier when I was at Caymus—or maybe I was smarter then." Dunn told me that 1999 appears to have produced thicker, sweeter wines than '98, with impressively snappy fresh berry flavors. While "basically the strongest lots" go into the Howell Mountain bottling, it's difficult to choose between the two cuvees as both are essentially from Howell Mountain fruit. Only 10% of Dunn's '98 fruit is from his valley floor source just south of Caymus.

Randy Dunn owns 20 acres of vines and leases another 6. About 85% of his cabernet comes from Howell Mountain (the original vineyard was planted in 1974), the rest from Caldwell Vineyard east of the town of Napa and Beckstoffer Vineyard on the valley floor near Caymus. There has been a convergence of styles between his Howell Mountain and Napa bottlings in recent years. As Dunn observes, "During the 1982-86 period, the Napa wine was mostly from valley fruit. But now it about 85% from Howell Mountain." Dunn recently pulled out the last of his zinfandel vines, after having made just one barrel of zin in '91, '93 and '95, and selling off the rest. "It's pointless for me to grow fruit and not make wine out of it," he explains. "Besides, there's no reason to grow zin up here. Cabernet is better, and prices for it are higher." Dunn normally carries out short, hot fermentations lasting no longer than eight days. From his observation of other Howell Mountain cabs, he feels that longer maceration would give his wines a tutti-frutti character and even more tannin.