Napa Valley's Most Coveted Cabs
(And The People Who Make Them)

By Steve Pitcher

As more and more people take up wine collecting, and as it is only human nature to covet a wine that one's fellow collector couldn't obtain for love or money, the search for the "ultimate" Napa Valley Cabernet rarity has focused on producers so small that most of them redefine the term "boutique."

In the good old days, Napa Valley's most outstanding Cabernet Sauvignons — the true collectors' wines — were turned out by wineries with sufficiently large production capabilities to supply the market with a comparatively large number of cases. Most enthusiasts had a fair shot at finding these treasures on merchants' shelves for a few weeks after initial release. Bottles of many of these wines from the 1960s, '70s and '80s, such as Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve, Mondavi Reserve, Heitz Martha's Vineyard and Inglenook Reserve Cask, are still to be found in private cellars because the serious collector was able to buy a couple of cases or more when the wines were first released.

Even today, those wines (except Inglenook), plus other great Cabs from smaller Napa Valley producers — such as the Special Selection from Caymus, Cask 23 from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Hillside Select from Shafer Vineyards, the reserves from Groth, Hess Collection and Beringer, and the estate Cabs from Forman, Chateau Montelena and Spottswoode, to name but a handful — can be found on merchants' shelves. Many are also offered through winery newsletters for a reasonable period of time after release, enabling the collector to acquire these wines, although the number of bottles per customer may be allocated or limited.

To develop a cult following today, however, it is not enough to merely be in short supply. The wine truly must be extraordinary to attract devoted consumers who eagerly snap up each year's allocation without regard to bottle price and without having an opportunity to personally sample the wine beforehand. Reputation sells the wine, and pre-release kudos in the wine press enhance reputation, leading to the shopping equivalent of a feeding frenzy come release time.

Ten such extraordinary cabernet-based wines are presented here — Napa Valley's "Top Ten," as it were. Some of the names will be familiar to wine lovers — Dunn Vineyards and Grace Family Vineyards have been turning out highly prized wines since the 1980s, and Philip Togni has been making superb wines since the 1950s — others, newer to the Napa Valley, may not be so well known to the majority of readers. Rounding out the list are Araujo Estate, Bryant Family Vineyard, Colgin Cellars, Dalla Valle Vineyards, Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle and The Terraces.

All of these wines are sold to customers lucky enough to be on the winery's mailing list, a popular marketing tool, especially among the smaller producers. Some also make their way into a limited number of restaurants favored by the winery owners, as well as to a few select retail accounts, where they are usually pre-sold to loyal customers on allotment.

A common feature among the ten is a great vineyard site. Indeed, each wine is an excellent expression of terroir, the essence of the best cab-based blends from both California and Bordeaux. Seven of the vineyard sites are located on the east side of Napa Valley, while three are on the west side. Six of the vineyards are on mountains or hillsides. David Abreu's vineyard management firm oversees farming operations for four of the ten — Araujo Estate, Bryant Family, Colgin Cellars and Harlan Estate — using state-of-the-art tools of vertical trellising, close spacing, careful irrigation and rigorous crop thinning to maximize each vine's energy into a few perfect grape clusters.

There also is a fair measure of overlapping among the winemaking talent. Of the five wines made by women, Helen Turley is responsible for Bryant Family and Colgin, while Heidi Peterson Barrett, who was formerly the winemaker for Dalla Valle, now crafts the Grace Family Cab and is the consulting enologist for Screaming Eagle. Tony Soter, whose reputation as a specialist in maximizing the potential of fine vineyards makes him one of the valley's most sought-after consulting enologists, now makes the wines at Dalla Valle and consults at Araujo Estate.

The wines discussed here were tasted blind on April 23 at Boulevard Restaurant in San Francisco (Boulevard offers many of them on its wine list). The wines were neither scored nor ranked against each other, but, rather, evaluated on individual char-acteristics. This is the first time that these great wines have been evaluated as a group for editorial purposes.

Culled from a selection of Napa Valley Cabs favored by our senior editors and merged with my own candidates, the chosen list of ten is not intended to be absolutely exclusive. The long-lived, small-production, vineyard-designated Cabernet Sauvignons of Diamond Creek Vineyards, for example, could expand the list to twelve or more, but Al Brounstein's Diamond Creek wines are a story in themselves, best discussed separately. Additionally, the Cabs made by Tony Soter for his own Etude bottlings and those produced by David Abreu for his eponymous label are exceptional, highly prized wines worthy of any connoisseur's list. Both Soter and Abreu nonetheless figure significantly in this story.

Here, presented in order of production from smallest to largest, are ten of Napa Valley's most coveted Cabernets.

Screaming Eagle
P.O. Box 134, Oakville, CA 94562
Fax: (707) 944-9271

Owner Jean Phillips is a full-time real estate broker specializing in Napa Valley vineyard sites. Her tiny but beautiful winery (bonded in 1988) is a small, stone building on a 73-acre valley floor ranch located near the Oakville Crossroad on the valley's east side. While most of the vineyard's fruit is sold to other wineries, the one-acre, extremely rocky "Screaming Eagle" section has been earmarked for personal use.

"I started making wine for fun to fulfill the need to understand what growing grapes really meant," Phillips explains. "In the Screaming Eagle section, I started to tend the vines, learning how to prune, sucker, pick the grapes and make wine. I knew right away the taste of the wine was outstanding, but needed help in refining it."

With the assistance of veteran Winemaker Dick Peterson and his daughter, Heidi Peterson Barrett, Phillips launched Screaming Eagle in 1995 with the release of 225 cases of the 1992 vintage. The 1993 vintage (135 cases) was released last year and is sold out; the 1994 (225 cases) is scheduled for release in October and there will be 500 cases of the 1995.

Peterson Barrett, whose reputation is based on her deft handling of a number of boutique wineries, currently works as the consulting enologist. "There's not a great deal of difference in how I approach winemaking for such small-production clients as Screaming Eagle and Grace Family, compared to higher production clients, except I am considerably more nervous," Peterson Barrett confides. "When you have only three barrels of wine that represent the winery's entire production, you can't afford to lose a drop when racking or topping off — there's simply no room for sloshing." Phillips attributes the remarkable qualities of her wine to "Heidi's great palate."

The wine has been lavishly praised from every quarter, leaving Phillips pinching herself now and again. "Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this could happen. Life is full of great surprises. Since I'm a full-time real estate broker, all of my winemaking is sandwiched in at odd hours — early mornings, very late nights. It has truly been an abundantly rewarding labor of love."

Screaming Eagle, 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon ($75; alc. 13.1%) — Blended with twelve percent merlot and three percent cab franc, the dark, opaque wine offers comparatively restrained scents of mint, cloves, berry-cassis fruit tinged with a hint of black pepper and fairly evident oak, which open with airing. Soft, round and fleshy in the mouth with medium tannins and generous, ripe berry fruit tinged with mint and spicy oak. Approachable even now, but clearly capable of aging well. 135 Cases Produced / Current Release

Grace Family Vineyards
Fax: (707) 963-5271

Proprietors Dick and Ann Grace are no strangers to readers of The Wine News, which presented an in-depth profile of the winery and the Graces' ongoing involvement with charitable organizations in the June/July 1993 issue. Their immaculate, two-acre vineyard is situated on the west side of Highway 29, about two miles north of St. Helena.

Following the 1994 harvest, which yielded 171 cases, the vines in the original one-acre portion had to be pulled out because it was stricken by the oak root fungus. The plot was replanted the next year with 3,465 vines, that's six times what is considered normal spacing in Napa Valley, and more in line with spacing in Bordeaux, where vine density is 3,200 to 4,000 per acre. Because of phylloxera, the remaining acre was replanted at the same density this year. A spiritual and philosophical man, Dick Grace views the changes with equanimity: "Though it has been sad to see the old vines removed, we realize that renewal is an important part of life. For every chapter that closes, new and perhaps even more rewarding chapters can be started."

The vineyard is all-important to Grace. "Eighty-five percent of the wine is made in the vineyard," he asserts. "We are stewards, not creators, of the wine."

Of the top ten Napa Cabernets selected for this story, the Grace Family wines have the longest history, beginning with the 1978 harvest, which was vinified by Charlie Wagner and sold under the Caymus label with a Grace Family Vineyards designation. Always optimistic, Dick Grace enthuses that "the 1994 vintage rivals or surpasses any of our previous offerings in quality." The making of this vintage was begun by Gary Galleron and finished by Heidi Peterson Barrett, who became the Grace Family winemaker in January 1995, when Galleron left to assume winemaking duties at Whitehall Lane. Because of the replantings, there will be only 900 bottles — 75 cases — of the 1995. Grace anticipates that production should be back to normal by the 1998 vintage.

Grace Family, 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon ($92; alc. 13.2%) — One hundred percent cabernet sauvignon, the wine offers very forward, fragrant, exotic aromas of cassis and black cherries accompanied by toasty oak. Smooth, plump and richly textured on the palate with ripe, medium-full tannins, the flavors focus on delicious black fruits accented by hints of blueberries, cedar and new oak. An elegant, though intense, complex and harmonious wine with extended aging potential. 171 Cases Produced / Current Release

The Terraces
P.O. Box 511, Rutherford, CA 94573
Fax: (707) 963-0770

Wayne Hogue grew up in Southern California and was a personal investment counselor when he purchased vineyard property in Napa Valley 20 years ago. Located just east of the Silverado Trail, about one mile north of the Rutherford Crossroad, the seven-acre vineyard is planted to cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel, and rises up a hillside, necessitating the terracing from which the winery derives its name.

Just as Charlie Wagner figured prominently in the Grace Family evolution, Chuck Wagner, Charlie's son, was a significant figure in the development of The Terraces. When Hogue decided to bottle his own wine, instead of selling his grapes to others, he enlisted Chuck Wagner's assistance in having the wine vinified at Caymus. The first such bottling was the 1986, which eclipsed some of Napa's most famous makers upon its release. The 1987 Terraces was equally stunning.

With the completion of his own winery at the vineyard site, Wayne, and eventually his son, Jeff, became more intensely involved with the winemaking process. According to Hogue, "Chuck Wagner is still our consulting enologist, and I suspect we could call him in if something went terribly wrong, but he hasn't had occasion to come by for quite some time now." Terraces' Cabernets are always 100 percent varietal and spend almost four years in oak.

The Terraces, 1992 Cabernet Sauvignon ($40; alc. 13.6%) — Intriguing aromas of leather, ripe, plummy berry-cassis fruit, black pepper, anise and oak lead to comparatively evolved flavors of cassis and raspberry, accented by clove, pepper and cedar. The medium-tannins, along with the oak, tend to restrain the fruit for now, but given a couple years of cellaring, the palate should even out. 291 Cases Produced / Current Release

Colgin Cellars
P.O. Box 372, Calistoga, CA 94515

Ann Colgin is a comparative newcomer to Napa Valley winemaking and, until recently, owned neither vineyard nor winery. Each of the Colgin wines produced to date, beginning with the 1992 Colgin (released in 1995), were made from purchased grapes harvested from the Herb Lamb Vineyard (located at the base of Howell Mountain on the east side of the valley) and vinified at a custom-crush winery.

From the start of the venture, production was in the hands of winemaker extraordinaire Helen Turley, whom Ann Colgin refers to as "the Wine Goddess." Both Turley and her husband, John Wetlaufer, are partners in Colgin Cellars, with Turley designated as the project director.

In contrast to Dick Grace, who feels that 85 percent of the wine is made in the vineyard, Turley believes in the human hand and employs a rigorous Bordeaux program of fermentation and èlevage, which results in wines that are supple, round and long-lived. Philosophically, she could be said to be an enthusiastic student of the famous Bordeaux professor and enologist, Emile Peynaud, whom her husband quotes in connection with an overview of Turley's approach to winemaking: "Nature alone does not make wine, even less does it produce good wine and it certainly does not make the best possible wine. The reality is that human beings have to intervene at every stage of its production. Wine is effectively the product of human labor and the product is only as good as the people who make it. Quality wine is not obtained fortuitously, but as the result of a constant effort to quality."

This interventionist philosophy carries over to the vineyard. There, Turley often can be found doing the farm work usually left to field hands or doling out detailed directions to workers as to how she wants things done. It is certainly the approach Turley applies in the production of the legendary Chardonnays under her own Marcassin label, and it is appreciated by the clients for whom she consults as winemaker.

According to Ann Colgin, the 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon (100 percent varietal) "perfectly exemplifies Helen's aesthetic mantra of 'power with finesse.'" The wine is distributed through the winery's mailing list and to a few ultra high-end restaurants in New York and California.

Even less of the 1995 Colgin will be available with production down to about 100 cases. To remedy this situation over the long run, Colgin acquired the five-acre Tychson Hill property, just north of Grace Family Vineyards, in 1995. She plans to develop it as a new cabernet vineyard site. Work began on the east-facing slope in 1996 and involved the removal of tons of rock at a cost of $25,000 per acre. Vines were planted this April.

Colgin Cellars, 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon, Herb Lamb Vineyard ($50; alc. 13.6%) — Wonderfully fragrant, appealing nose of sandalwood, lilacs, violets and very ripe, berry-cassis fruit accented by hints of herbs and black pepper. Satiny smooth, round and intricately textured, the wine is moderately rich and elegant with medium tannins, offering complex flavors of ripe, black cherry-cassis-cranberry fruit accompanied by intriguing notes of glove leather and creamy oak. 400 Cases Produced / Current Release

Dalla Valle Vineyards
P.O. Box 329, Oakville, CA 94562
Fax: (707) 944-8411

Self-made millionaire Gustav Dalla Valle, whose Northern Italian family had been in the wine business for more than 150 years, moved to the Napa Valley in 1982. There, he invested more than $2 million, building a spectacular, Mediterranean-style home and planting 25 acres of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and sangiovese vineyards. Situated high up on the mountain slopes above the Silverado Trail east of Oakville, a winery was constructed on the property in 1986 in preparation for the first harvest.

The reddish-brown soil of his low-yielding vineyards is comprised of a high percentage of fractured, volcanic rock, providing a pathway for the vine roots. At an elevation of 400 feet above the valley floor, the vineyards receive excellent sun exposure and are blessed with a cooling breeze blowing north from the San Francisco Bay.

The winery produces three wines: Pietre Rosse (100 percent sangiovese), a Cabernet Sauvignon and Maya, the highly sought proprietary red that is an estate blend of 55 percent cabernet sauvignon and 45 percent cabernet franc. The cuvèe was named for Dalla Valle's daughter, Maya, who, coincidentally, is the god-daughter of Jean Phillips, owner of Screaming Eagle.

The ebullient and gregarious Dalla Valle died in 1995, leaving his legacy in the capable hands of his wife, Naoko. "Nothing will really change with the Maya," she assures. "The grapes have always been the reason for its success — they make such a powerful statement. As long as we have this remarkable fruit, there will always be a great Maya."

Today, the Cabernet Sauvignon is the winery's major production item at about 2,200 cases, but only 500 cases of Maya are produced each year from a four-acre vineyard block. Winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett crafted the inaugural 1988 Maya, as well as succeeding vintages until she turned over consulting duties to enologist Tony Soter and his associate, Mia Klein, shortly after Dalla Valle's death.

Insisting on giving credit where credit is due, Soter emphasizes that "Mia Klein is the point person at Dalla Valle. She's the one primarily responsible for day-to-day winemaking operations." With an extraordinary precedent already established, Soter and Klein plan merely to "tweak" future Maya vintages, but "the wine will remain essentially in the style established by Heidi Barrett," says Soter. Klein, incidentally, also makes highly regarded Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc under her own Selene Wines label.

Dalla Valle Vineyards, 1994 Maya ($80; alc. 13.5%) — Inky, dark purple, opaque hue. The nose is extremely appealing with exotic scents of sandalwood, black cherries, cassis and creamy vanillin oak. Mouth-filling and full-bodied with ripe, medium-full tannins, well-integrated and extracted flavors focusing on ripe, black fruit, toasted almonds and vanilla. A melded, complex, well-honed wine with a long, lingering finish. 500 Cases Produced / Release Date: September 1, 1997

Bryant Family Vineyard
701 Market Street, Suite 1200, St. Louis, MO 63101

Don Bryant, Jr., is a passionate and knowledgeable lover and collector of French wines, particularly Bordeaux reds. His wife, Barbara, is an equally passionate and knowledgeable gardener. Their love of wine and all growing things led them in 1991 to buy their ten-acre vineyard on a particularly beautiful site 2,000 feet up on Pritchard Hill overlooking Lake Hennessey in the mountains east of Oakville. The Bryants, who reside in Missouri, engaged Helen Turley as their project director and winemaker.

Turley's particular interest, passion and skill lie in guiding small winegrowing projects — such as Bryant Family and Colgin — that are based on superior viticultural sites. Her winemaking approach for Bryant Cabernet is identical to that employed with Colgin. In both cases, the wines are 100 percent cabernet sauvignon and aged in 100 percent new French oak.

The vineyard's proximity to a large body of water, unusual for Napa, positively influences its microclimate by minimizing the differences between warm and cool growing seasons. The soils are mostly rocks and cobbles. The development of the vineyard necessitated the removal of hundreds of colossal boulders — some the size of a small car — leaving a very well-drained growing medium for the low-vigor, shy-bearing vines, which yield but two tons per acre. The northeast-facing slope provides ideal exposure.

At Bryant Family Vineyard, according to Turley, "we have the perfect fit of people and place that defines the most exciting wine growing ventures." As to the site itself, Turley asserts that "having vinified fruit from this vineyard for the last five years, in years that were warm and early, 1993 and 1996, cool and late, 1995, and right down the middle, dream-like 1994, I'm confident in saying that this is a great site for cabernet wine growing — in Bordeaux terms, a grand cru or a premier grand cru."

There were about 900 cases each of the initial Bryant 1993 Cabernet and the current release from the 1994 harvest. Beginning in 1995, Turley and company began a two-phase replanting program that involved removal of five acres of vines for replacement with phylloxera-resistant and even less vigorous rootstocks planted in dense spacing of 2,500 vines per acre. Production will consequently decline approximately 50 percent to about 550 cases per year over the next ten years. "Though it is difficult to imagine," Turley remarks,

"I feel this new viticulture, at once traditional and state-of-the-art, will give even more intense wines." Bryant Family Vineyard, 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon, Pritchard Hill ($60; alc. 14.2%) — Distinctive, fragrant nose of glove leather, black cherry-cassis fruit, vanillin oak, minerals and warm spice. Full-flavored and generous on the palate with smooth, rich, supple textures; complex, opulent black fruit flavors tinged with blueberries; and a long, rich finish. A superb, elegant and distinctive wine that is full of character and an absolute joy to drink. 900 Cases Produced / Current Release

Harlan Estate
P.O. Box 352, Oakville, CA 94562
Fax: (707) 944-1444

Location is a concept with which Bill Harlan is very familiar. Coming from a career in real estate development, he spent 20 years in the Napa Valley piecing together special parcels among the oak-studded knolls and valleys in the hills west of Oakville to finally create the assemblage of well-situated, contiguous properties which now make up the 230-acre Harlan Estate. The hillside vineyard, which rises above the Rutherford-Oakville benchlands, is roughly ten percent of the estate and was planted in the mid-'80s on spartan soils to the classic Bordeaux varieties.

During this time, he founded Merryvale Vineyards in St. Helena and became managing partner of Meadowood Country Club. His personal vision was, however, always a simple one: to produce a California "First Growth" from the hills of Oakville. "I wanted to make a classic blend of great style," he says, "a wine reflecting the unique character of the estate, which is grounded to the land and built for generations." To accomplish this goal, beautiful terraces were cut to contour the shape of the hillsides, clones were carefully selected, vines were densely spaced and the well-groomed canopy was trained to a vertical trellis, allowing for good penetration of sunlight and air circulation. "We were uncompromising in farming and viticultural practices," Harlan explains, "exercising enormous patience and care to achieve low vine vigor and low yields of exceptional fruit."

Since the first commercial release of the 1990 Harlan Cabernet Sauvignon, the winemaking has been a collaboration between Robert Levy, Merryvale's winemaker, and Bordeaux consulting enologist Michel Rolland. Hand-picked and hand-sorted, the estate fruit is fermented in small lots, then aged in new French oak for two to three years. The wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered and graced with a label engraved by the American Bank Note Company.

Harlan Estate, 1992 Red Table Wine ($75; alc. 13.5%) — A blend of 45 percent each cabernet sauvignon and merlot, and ten percent cabernet franc. The wine offers complex, attractive, smoky scents of cedar, ripe, plummy, black cherry-cassis-blackberry fruit, creamy oak, minerals and a hint of dried herbs. Massive and extractive on the palate with firm tannins matched by lots of ripe, concentrated fruit, it is years away from drinkability, but has the balance to reward at least five years of patient cellaring. Very impressive in all respects. 1,029 Cases Produced / Current Release

Araujo Estate
Fax: (707) 942-6471

The 36-acre Eisele Vineyard, located on a benchland in northern Napa Valley east of Calistoga at the base of the Palisades Mountains on a south-facing alluvial fan, has been recognized as a prime vineyard site since the 19th century. Exceptional cabernet sauvignon grapes thrive here because of the well-drained, cobbly soil and a favorable microclimate — warm daytime temperatures mitigated by refreshing afternoon breezes from the Russian River Valley via the Chalk Hill Gap.

Cabernet sauvignon was first planted in this vineyard in 1964, four years before Milt and Barbara Eisele purchased the property. Ridge Vineyards produced the first Eisele Vineyard-designated Cab in 1971, and beginning in 1975, wine pioneer Joseph Phelps began producing an impressive sequence of Eisele Cabernets, which firmly established the vineyard's status as a world-class site.

The acquisition of the property in 1990 by Bart and Daphne Araujo marked a new phase in the life of the Eisele Vineyard. The 1991 vintage yielded two Eisele Cabs, the final Phelps bottling and the first Araujo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, which was made by Araujo Consulting Winemaker Tony Soter. Thereafter, a replanting program added other red Bordeaux blending varietals to the vineyard, as well as syrah, sauvignon blanc and viognier. The Araujos also built a small winery and aging caves on the property.

In 1996, they hired Françoise Peschon as their winemaker. She had previously worked at Château Haut-Brion and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, and was the person from Soter's consulting business primarily responsible for overseeing winemaking duties at Araujo. Soter continues as their consulting enologist. "The decision to hire Françoise as winemaker was a joint one between Tony and myself," Bart Araujo explains. "Tony believes that she has an exceptional palate, which is high praise, indeed, and, significantly, she shares our ideas about integrating vineyard and winery operations. Françoise spends as much time in the vineyard as she does in the winery because she knows what must be done in the vineyard in order to craft great wines."

For her part, Peschon is enthusiastic about the "team environment" at Araujo Estate. "David Abreu farms the vineyard, I make the wine with Tony consulting and the Araujos are involved in every step," she notes. "All of our jobs overlap and the goal is always to make the best product possible at any expense."

As to her winemaking style, Peschon explains that "I don't try to make something out of the grapes that isn't there in the first place. When working with a single vineyard in a team environment, the winemaking is more about glorifying the site and less about the winemaker imposing a certain signature wine style. The intent is to let the grapes translate themselves into wine that is unmistakably 'Eisele.' We couldn't possibly overshadow that goal with an individual wine style."

Araujo Estate, 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon, Eisele Vineyard ($40; alc. 13.5%) — An estate blend of cabernet sauvignon (92%), cabernet franc (7%) and petit verdot (1%), the wine's forward nose exhibits ripe cassis mingled with smoke, chocolate and vanillin oak. Fleshy and rich in the mouth with medium tannins, the complex, layered flavors impress with ripe cassis-black cherry-blackberry fruit, dried herb, anise and nicely integrated oak that has an intriguing, smoky quality. A big wine with fine balance. 1,285 Cases Produced / Current Release

Philip Togni Vineyard
P.O. Box 81, St. Helena, CA 94574
Fax: (707) 963-9186

Philip Togni's colorful winemaking background can be traced as far back as the 1950s, when he was appointed assistant winemaker at Château Lascombes in Margaux. A veteran of the British army, he pursued geology at the Imperial College in London and eventually received an enology degree from the University of Bordeaux, studying under the great Emile Peynaud. Thereafter, he made his way to California where he has made wine successively at Mayacamas, Chalone (its first winemaker), Gallo, Chappellet and Cuvaison.

Having gained an appreciation for mountain-grown California cabernet sauvignon, in 1975 Togni purchased an abandoned vineyard near the top of Spring Mountain (at the 2,000-foot level) on the west side of Napa Valley. He made his first wine from the property in 1983. Today, the vineyard consists of 10.5 acres planted to cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc. "Winemaking practices are varied hardly at all from year to year," Togni says, "so that with my current wines there is a direct link back to my 1969 Cabernet from Chappellet and my 1975 Cuvaison Reserve, both of which are now at or approaching maturity."

Because of Pierce's disease, Togni began replanting in 1994, with production consequently dropping to 1,000 cases for each of the vintages from 1995 through 1997. He expects production will creep back to 2,500 cases within a few years. While the 1994 Cabernet is sold out, a small remaining tranche may be re-released in 2004.

Philip Togni, 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon ($50; under 14% alc.) — Intriguing, complex scents of jammy black fruit, mild bell pepper herbaceousness, minerals, toasty oak and a hint of earthiness lead to similar flavors that are quite deep and extracted. A huge wine with full tannins and fine balance that should age nicely for ten years or more. The wine is a blend of 83 percent cabernet sauvignon, 15 percent merlot and 2 percent cabernet franc. 1,752 Cases Produced / Current Release

Dunn Vineyards
P.O. Box 886, Angwin, CA 94508
Fax: (707) 965-3805

On the other side of the valley, beyond the town of Angwin, Randy Dunn makes his version of mountain-grown Cabernet with Howell Mountain fruit. He now has 20 acres under vine, six of which are planted to cabernet sauvignon. Dunn's history with this varietal goes back to the mid-1970s, when, fresh out of U.C.-Davis, he was hired by Charlie Wagner as the winemaker at Caymus Vineyards. Dunn was then, as he is today, devoted to Cabernet. "Of all the red wines," he says, "it's the one I enjoy most."

Dunn made the first Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon in 1975 and stayed on for ten years. He left in 1985 to devote his time to his own winery project — a 14-acre, Howell Mountain spread that he had purchased from Charlie Wagner in 1978.

The Dunn Howell Mountain Cab is not an estate wine. About one-third of the grapes come from Dunn's vineyard, another third from a vineyard that he manages and the remaining third is purchased from another Howell Mountain grower. "Even though I control two of the vineyard sources," he explains, "I don't have the percentage necessary to call the wine 'estate bottled,' which I don't consider all that important anyway." Regardless of source, the Howell Mountain is always 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.

Dunn Vineyards, 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain ($40; alc. 13.5%) — Inky, dark purple, opaque hue. Lots of medium-high charred oak aromas and a burst of ripe, blackberry-cassis fruit, cedar, minerals, mild herbaceousness and a violet note. Tannic and massively structured, the deeply extracted berry fruit is dense and profound, and will persist through the decade it will require for the tannins to resolve. 2,200 Cases Produced / Current Release

Contributing Editor Steve Pitcher is a freelance wine writer who is vice president of the Vintners Club and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the German Wine Society, both non-profit, educational organizations. His "Vintner's Choice" column appears regularly on the Internet at "Sally's Place" (http://www.bpe.com).