About Dunn Vineyards
There are few wineries in Napa more iconic than Dunn. Randy Dunn put the now-coveted Howell Mountain appellation on the map by producing some of Napa’s greatest wines throughout the 1980s and 90s.
When Dunn first planted his flag on Howell Mountain in 1979, the rocky, hardscrabble area wasn’t yet considered one of the most desirable locations for Cabernet in Napa. It was long before Hundred Acre, Abreu, and Dana would make $500 bottles from the neighborhood, but Dunn knew the mountain had the potential to produce something epic. However, in a classic case of understatement, he simply said this about Howell Mountain: “I thought it was pretty and that I could make some good wine.”
So he left his job at Caymus, where he was the original enologist, to start a small vineyard. He then proceeded to make wines that came to define “classic Napa”: bold, dark, rugged Cabernets capable of lasting for decades—and no wines in Napa age better.
Sitting above 1400 feet in elevation, Dunn’s vineyards benefit from abundant sunshine each day but experience only moderate heat. However, spring starts later there, frost is a concern from budbreak through flowering, and yields are low, averaging a mere two tons an acre.