Cakebread Cellars, Howell Mountain (Napa Valley) Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

This massive mountain cabernet from Cakebread’s Dancing Bear Ranch on Howell Mountain was voted best-of-class cabernet sauvignon at Winemaker Challenge IV, where it also narrowly lost the vote for Best of Show red wine to another great Napa Valley wine, the 2009 V. Sattui Paradiso, a superb blended red Bordeaux-style wine. The Cakebread is rich and powerful, with exceptional intensity on the palate, and weight without overbearing heft. This is a wine that will need another three to five years to fully mature and show its best, but even today the layers of dark fruit clearly demonstrate the promise of the future. This is a warm wine with subtle wood notes and hints of spice and mocha. Very powerful, very complex, very good.