2012 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
Tasting like a great Bordeaux, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain reveals a deeper ruby/plum hue to go with a classic Cabernet nose of blackcurrant and blackberry fruits intermixed with tobacco, scorched earth, licorice, and lead pencil notes. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it's shed its youthful baby fat and has a pure, focused texture with building tannins, wonderful overall balance, and terrific length. In an adolescent phase, it needs another 2-4 years of bottle age to hit full maturity, where it should stay for another 15-20 years. This is a beautiful, classic wine from this estate that reminds me of some of the Dunn wines from the 1980s.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Robert Parker
More reviews and scores
Dark ruby-red. Very reticent but ripe scents of black raspberry, licorice and graphite. Hugely rich, chewy, slightly liqueur-like wine with the powerful medicinal reserve of a barrel sample. This massive, brooding, dark Cabernet is almost too much today and will need a good decade more of cellaring to lose some of its baby fat. Finishes extremely tactile and long, with substantial tannins coating the front teeth. (13.9% after a bit of de-alcoholization--as in 2004 and 2009)
Stones and walnuts with blackberries and blueberries. A full-bodied, super-refined and polished wine that culminates in a racy and refined finish. Extremely long and exciting. Great wine.
The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is classic Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, with plenty of licorice, blackcurrant and blackberry fruit, forest floor and background oak and earth. It is full-bodied, showing wonderfully sweet tannin and a long, layered finish. It does strike me as somewhat more approachable in its youth than Randy Dunn’s Cabernets would have been. Certainly, this will age for 25 or more years.