2022 Grand Napa Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain 750 ml

Grand Napa Vineyards has built one of the more quietly impressive track records in our portfolio. Across multiple vintages and bottlings, their Cabernets have consistently overdelivered—earning some of the most enthusiastic member reviews we see, and selling out reliably every time we’ve offered them.

The Howell Mountain bottling represents something new from winemaker Dwight Bonewell: a departure from the valley-floor and benchland sources that made Grand Napa’s reputation, and a step up into one of Napa’s most demanding and distinctive appellations.

Howell Mountain was Napa Valley’s first-ever sub-AVA, designated in 1983, and the distinction was earned. The appellation sits on the northeastern slopes of the Vaca Range at elevations between 1,400 and 2,200 feet—well above the fog line that settles over the valley floor each morning. Up here, the days are sunny and the nights are cold, with temperature swings that regularly run 10 to 20 degrees cooler than Napa below. That differential is everything: it slows ripening, deepens flavor, and preserves the acidity that gives mountain Cabernet its structure and longevity.

The soils are volcanic and iron-rich—rocky, extremely well-drained, and hard on the vine in all the right ways. Stressed vines produce smaller berries with thicker skins and more concentrated flavors, and Howell Mountain’s combination of elevation and geology pushes that concentration further than almost anywhere else in the Valley.

What comes out the other side is a style of Cabernet that has its own devoted following: darker and more structured than valley-floor Napa, with firm mountain tannin and the kind of aging potential that rewards patience. The best Howell Mountain Cabernets sit comfortably alongside Napa’s most serious bottles.

Bonewell has brought that same exacting approach to this 2022. The wine is inky ruby in the glass, opening with ripe dark cherry, blackberry, and espresso alongside dried herb, lavender, and licorice. The mouthfeel is rich and concentrated, with cassis and vanilla threading through abundant, well-integrated tannin on the way to a long, persistent finish.