California Red Wines

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Two of the most impressive wines in these tastings, both of Dunn’s 1986s tasted like 3-4-year old Cabernets rather than 10-year old adolescents. The opaque purple-colored 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain offers awesome richness, mindboggling intensity, huge tannin, a massive mouthfeel, and a closed yet formidably long, well-endowed finish. This wine could be put in a tasting of 1994 California Cabernets and not stand out as a 10-year old wine. Give it another 5-7 years of cellaring and drink it over the subsequent 25-30 years ... amazing!Robert Parker | 95 RPFull medium red with a faint hint of amber. Aromas of dark cherry, menthol and mint show a slightly medicinal cough medicine quality; very Médoc in style. Then surprisingly supple and fine-grained, offering terrific inner-mouth energy and acidity to shape and freshen its intense dark raspberry and menthol flavors. This wine is fully mature but still full of life, displaying plenty of tobacco and savory spices but also superb remaining fruit and floral lift. For a bone-dry wine, it delivers captivating fruit sweetness that perfectly supports its firm tannins. An excellent showing--and not as dry as the ’83 or ’84. (13% alcohol)Vinous Media | 92 VM

The 1987 Reserve is a worthy competitor to the terrific 1986. The 1987's dark ruby/garnet color is followed by a super bouquet. There are huge aromas of chocolate, spicy new oak, herbs, cassis and tobacco in this beautifully scented wine. In the mouth, it is full-bodied, voluptuous, spicy, and crammed with fruit, glycerin, and enough tannin to support 15-16 years of cellaring. Like the 1986, the tannins are soft, and, fortunately, the acids are not shrill enough to prevent immediate drinkability. This is a skillfully made, complex Cabernet Sauvignon that will not linger long on retailers' shelves.Beringer continues to do everything right. Its staff of talented professionals may rank as the best in the business. Since 1984, its Private Reserve Cabernets have been among the top dozen Cabernets produced in California and are not likely to stumble over the next several years.Robert Parker | 93 RP(Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve) Back in 2002 when I participated in a very in-depth retrospective tasting of the 1987 California cabernets meticulously organized by subscriber Michael Rockefeller, the Beringer Private Reserve was one of the undisputed stars of the tasting. Seven years on the wine continues to drink very well indeed, as it delivers a full blown and suave nose of a wine at its apogee in its mix of sweet black cherries, chocolate, tobacco smoke, a bit of cassis and a nicely measured framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, plush and beautifully balanced, with a sappy core of fruit, very little remaining tannin, but such lovely balance that the wine just sings as it closes with fine length and grip on the refined finish. This is by no means the most complex example of Rutherford Bench cabernet, but every note it hits is precise and pure. Lovely juice. (Drink between 2009-2019).John Gilman | 92 JG(13.6% alcohol; 25% Chabot, 6% State Lane, 13% St. Helena, 50% Bancroft Ranch and 6% Cabernet Franc from Howell Mountain): Good medium red. Sexy, pure aromas of redcurrant, mocha, leather and flint. Fine-grained and sweet, with nicely integrated acidity giving shape to the flavors of dark fruits, truffle, pepper, lavender and sassafras. Finishes with building tannins, excellent length and considerable finesse. This rather suave wine possesses a firm mountain spine.Vinous Media | 92 VM

This is fresh and tangy, with sanguine, savory and iron notes leading gently mulled red and black currant fruit along. A savory edge sparkles through the finish, which shows a pleasantly dusty edge. Very pretty. -- Non-blind Groth Cabernet vertical (August 2024). Drink now through 2030.Wine Spectator | 93 WSThe 1987 Groth, at 37 years of age, is quite polished. The vines were coming of age, about 15 years old in 1987. It still displays good fruit notes—blackcurrants, dried blackberry fruits, dried apricots, and cherry—along with an elegance of savoury spices leading with tobacco, worn cedarwood, and chanterelles. Medium to full-bodied, with round and silky tannins that are beautifully integrated, the wine is succulent, voluminous, and juicy with plenty of length, tension, and energy. The long finish reveals chalky minerals, dried sage, and black olive notes. Nils Venge made the 1987 Groth Cabernet. Sampled during a vertical tasting of Groth wines (1982–2022) in early 2024 with proprietor Dennis Groth and winemaker Ted Henry.Decanter Magazine | 91 DEC

1990 was the first vintage (4,756 cases produced) and one of the most abundant before the replanting became essential because of phylloxera, and was again made at Robert Pepi. However, the percentage of Cabernet Franc jumped to 10% in the final blend. Mia Klein, who worked with Tony Soter, was part of the winemaking team. This wine performed beautifully, and had that Château Margaux-like finesse, elegance and richness. Beautiful blackcurrant notes, graphite, rose petal and licorice, were all present in this deep ruby/plum-colored wine that came across like a Napa version of a first-growth Médoc. It is medium to full-bodied, with beautiful, integrated tannin, acidity and wood. This should continue to drink well for another 10-15-plus years.Robert Parker | 95 RPStill young and firm, this delivers spicy plum and chocolate flavors; it’s polished, balanced and intense. Approachable now.--Spottswoode vertical. Best after 2000. 4,500 cases made.Wine Spectator | 90 WS

Bright, deep red-ruby. Wonderfully mellow and complex on the nose, offering everything from fresh dark fruits to chocolate, red licorice, flowers and graphite minerality. Pure liquid silk in the mouth; at once sharply delineated and edge-free thanks to superb harmonious acidity, possessing a wonderfully tight core of juicy fruit. This very dry, classic Howell Mountain Cabernet finishes with serious dusty but sweet tannins and will still improve. Stunning wine. (13% alcohol).Vinous Media | 96 VMThe 1991 Howell Mountain Cabernet is noticeably thicker and more highly extracted than the 1992 and 1993 vintages. It is a huge, rich, powerful wine with great depth, as well as a boat-load of tannin. Do not touch a bottle for at least 5-6 years.Robert Parker | 93 RP(Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon “Howell Mountain”) I have a pretty high tolerance to brettanomyces in wine, and generally can tolerate a small amount in most bottles. That said, the ’91 Dunn Howell Mountain may be just a tad too bretty for its own good, and I am sure that there are plenty of people out there that are less tolerant of this issue and will find this wine less enjoyable than I did. The bouquet is deep and tight, with good complexity in its blend of cassis, black raspberries, medicinal tones, leather, stony soil tones, cedar and a fair bit of brett eventually emerging from the glass. On the palate the wine is fullish, young and shut down, with a good core of fruit, moderate tannins, lovely transparency down to the soil and good length and grip on the long and slightly bretty finish. If you have absolutely no tolerance for brett, knock this score down by several points, but for those that do not mind it too much, this is an impressively complex bottle of cabernet that is only a few years away from really peeking. (Drink between 2015-2040).John Gilman | 92 JGA dense, potent, rich, dark-colored wine, with immense tannins and a rich core of earth and leather-scented Cabernet fruit. Offers hints of mint, rose petal and anise, and at midpalate it gives a glimmer of polish before finishing with a wall of chewy tannins. Patience required.--'81/'91 California Cabernet retrospective. Best from 2003 through 2014.Wine Spectator | 91 WS

The incredible 1991 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate appears to be a natural born legend. It competes with the other-worldly 1987 in terms of pure richness and flavor. It possesses amazing depth, an impenetrably opaque purple color, and a finish that lasts for nearly a minute. The wine offers a fabulously ripe nose of black-raspberries, cassis, spices, and vanillin. This is the second vintage where the type of tannins achieved by Montelena are softer and sweeter. This is clearly a 20-30 year Cabernet.Robert Parker | 97 RPThe 1991 Chateau Montelena put the Pomerol in its place, incontrovertibly emerging as the star of the evening. The bouquet is utterly sublime, offering enticing scents of blackberries, iodine and a hint of cassis, opulent but beautifully controlled and defined. The palate does not disappoint, delivering plenty of fresh black fruit laced with raspberry preserve and cassis, all wrapped up in a seductive velvety texture that belies the structure underneath. Wonderful!Vinous Media | 95 VMSmooth, rich and intense without being overly tannic. The core of black cherry, anise, blackberry and currant flavors is well-focused, turning supple, with persistent flavors on the finish.--’81/’91 California Cabernet retrospective. Drink now through 2006. 12,000 cases made. — JLWine Spectator | 91 WS

As I reported last year, the 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard is a spectacular wine from a vintage that has consistently received unfavorable press (particularly from the Wine Spectator). It seems to me that if the 1993 vintage were taken out of the context of the historical succession of outstanding years in the nineties, and put in the eighties, qualitatively, 1993 would tower over the likes of 1987, 1985, or 1984. The Eisele Vineyard 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the half dozen or so candidates for wine of the vintage. I have tasted it three times out of bottle, once rating it as high as 98, but never less than 96. It is a mind-boggling Cabernet Sauvignon that is remarkably well-balanced for its size and intensity. The color is an opaque purple, and the nose offers up smoky, chocolatey, blackcurrant, licorice, and mineral scents. On the palate, the wine reveals fabulous density, concentration, sweetness of fruit as well as tannin, and a 30-40 second finish. Although there is a high percentage of new oak, this wine has completely soaked it up, a testament to its extract and concentration of fruit. While the wine displays a certain precociousness, unusual for a 1993, there is plenty of tannin lurking in the finish, but it is well-concealed by the wine's exceptional richness. This beauty is destined to age effortlessly for 20-25 years.The Eisele Vineyard has always produced concentrated Cabernet Sauvignons with blackcurrant/cassis personalities intermixed with a mineral component. What the Araujos have been able to achieve is to intensify the fruit character, as well as the wine's purity and definition. That, plus high quality French oak barrels and a natural approach to winemaking has resulted in a succession of extraordinary Cabernets that began in 1991, and shows no signs of abating.Robert Parker | 96 RPRemarkably youthful and vibrant, with spicy currant, plum, black cherry and anise flavors that pick up touches of earth, mocha and cigar box. Enormous complexity, depth and range of flavors. Has hit an ideal drinking plateau now, but could well last another decade. Decant.--1993 California Cabernet retrospective. Drink now through 2012. 1,285 cases made.Wine Spectator | 94 WS

The Maya Proprietary red wine is usually a blend of 45% Cabernet Franc and 55% Cabernet Sauvignon. The 1993 Maya is awesome. The opaque purple color accompanies a bouquet of stony, jammy cassis, roasted herbs, and smoky, meaty scents that are just beginning to unfold and soar from the glass. The wine possesses unbelievable concentration, powerful tannin, and a finish that lasts for 45+ seconds. It is an extraordinarily well-endowed and well-balanced wine that requires 5-7 years of cellaring. It will age effortlessly through the first 25 years of the next century. The 1993s and 1994s are in bottle, and the 1993s, which were released several months ago, are disappearing before any bottles hit the retail shelf. Readers who could neither afford nor find the Cabernet Sauvignon or Maya Proprietary Red, will have to wait another ten months for the release of the 1994s. Production at Dalla Valle has dropped, largely because of the phylloxera damage to the vineyard, and the consequent replanting. For example, the production in 1993 was 40% less than that in 1992. The quantities of wine in 1994 will be equally small. Not until the late nineties is production expected to return to its former level.Robert Parker | 98 RPStill dark, with high-toned, rich, supple blackberry, currant and black cherry fruit, picking up pretty anise, leather and mineral flavors on the long, intense finish. Has the fruit concentration and tannic structure for further aging.--1993 California Cabernet retrospective. Drink now through 2010. 500 cases made.Wine Spectator | 93 WSToday the 1993 Maya comes across as a bit rough around the edges. The fruit struggles to emerge in a Maya that is compact and not fully expressive. Forward aromas and flavors suggest the 1993 is best enjoyed sooner rather than later. I imagine the 1993 would show better in most other settings, but here, surrounded by a bevy of epic vintages, its strengths and weaknesses are evident.Vinous Media | 92 VM

The 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain reveals an opaque black color, huge tannin, terrific purity, and density, a broad, heavyweight mouthfeel, and gobs of ripe tannin. It is a massive Cabernet Sauvignon that requires a decade of cellaring - at the minimum. The last three vintages (1993, 1994 and 1995) offer fabulous promise. They are black/purple-colored wines, with similar levels of sweet, cassis, mineral-tinged fruit, full body, and blockbuster levels of extract and tannin. Both the 1994s and 1995s are still in barrel. What I tasted represented what Randy Dunn believed would be the final blend. This is one winery where the 1995s may turn out to be a point or two superior to the 1994s. The 1995's super-sweet richness is even more intense than the fabulous concentration and extract of the 1994s. This is also another producer who turned out outstanding 1993s, a vintage that has received some unjustifiably tough press from West Coast wine critics.Robert Parker | 95 RPThe 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is an excellent choice for drinking over the next decade or so, as it appears to be more of a mid-weight vintage for Dunn. Open and expressive today, the 1993 is a wine of balance and proportion. Sweet tobacco, anise and spice notes inform the close.Vinous Media | 93 VMEarthy, reductive aromas of anise, tar, mineral and currant lead to similar flavors that are intense, with firm, leather-scented tannins. Supple for a young Dunn Howell Mountain.--1993 California Cabernet retrospective. Drink now through 2007. 1,670 cases made.Wine Spectator | 91 WS

The 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is similar in all respects to the Napa Valley, but somewhat heavier in the mouth, with an aggressive tannic bite, and more length. It possesses mineral-tinged blackberry and cassis fruit, massive body, and extraordinary purity and length. It should not be touched for 12-15 years. It will undoubtedly live through the first half of the next century.Robert Parker | 96 RP(13.0% alcohol): Dark red-ruby. Sauvage nose combines dark berries, licorice, mushroom, compost, mocha and minerals. A wine of superb intensity and energy, even if it lacks the flesh of the best vintages here. Not a particularly sweet style, in part due to the wine’s penetrating acidity. Finishes a bit dry, with big tannins and a lingering leathery quality. This wine struck me as even tighter than the 2004 Howell Mountain bottle I tasted a year ago.Vinous Media | 91 VM

A wine of great intensity and richness, it displays classic notes of licorice, barbecue smoke, creme de cassis, cedarwood and forest floor. Full-bodied with sensational purity, a multidimensional mouthfeel and a long, voluptuous finish with no hard edges, it has only reached mid-adolescence, and has at least two decades of life ahead of it.Robert Parker | 98 RPDeep ruby-red. Exhilarating, vibrant aromas of cassis, minerals, cocoa powder and brown spices. Juicy, very intensely flavored and sharply delineated; offers lovely restrained sweetness and great finesse. Complex and light on its feet. Finishes bright and fine, with firm tannins and strong dark berry, tobacco and woodsmoke flavors. Remarkably subtle oak. Even better than it showed last winter.Vinous Media | 94 VM

The saturated purple-colored 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard offers an attractive nose of black fruits intermixed with toast, minerals, subtle tar, and wood smoke. Full-bodied, with impressive purity, a multi-layered mid-palate and finish, it is an expressive, pure, powerful, and large-boned wine.Robert Parker | 94 RPSmooth and polished, with detailed flavors of ripe plum, black cherry, spice and light oak, this pedigreed red turns rich and elegant, with a long, complex aftertaste. Best from 2001 through 2008. 2,305 cases made.Wine Spectator | 94 WSDeep ruby color, darker for its age than the '97. Slightly roasted aromas of black fruits, toffee, leather, tobacco, mocha and dark chocolate; exhilarating suggestion of crystallized berries. Lush and velvety in the mouth; already displays wonderful sweetness and layered texture. Very strong back end features chewy, ripe tannins. A very successful '96, showing beautifully today.Vinous Media | 93 VM