The CADE Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced from five vineyards on Howell Mountain, including the CADE Estate Vineyard, CADE 13th Vineyard, Ink Grade Vineyard, Cold Springs, and Eagle Summit.
The resulting wine is fantastic with aromas of clove, cranberry, raspberry, coffee, cinnamon, black pepper, and coco nibs. Gloriously pure notes of boysenberry, graphite, blackberry, coffee, and dark chocolate soar from the glass and cascade over the palate. The wine is full-bodied, with an opulent, velvety texture, pure, rich with firm tannins and bold structure that is classic Howell Mountain.
With a shared vision, Gavin Newsom, Gordon Getty and John Conover imagined the addition of a complementary estate vineyard to the valley floor terroir of their Oakville estate at PlumpJack Estate Winery. In 2005, that dream came to fruition in the form of a 54-acre estate, elevated high above the fog line, on the dramatic slopes of Howell Mountain – it would become CADE Estate Winery.
Given the opportunity to build the winery from the ground up, Newsom, Getty and Conover were committed to constructing a state-of-the-art winery that would pay tribute to the land, both aesthetically and ecologically. This commitment would go above and beyond the standard benchmark of environmental responsibility, especially in the world of wine. The end goal, to construct the first CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers) organically farmed, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certified Estate Winery in the Napa Valley.
As an homage to their first winery, the caves at CADE Estate were designed in the shape of the PlumpJack shield. CADE Estate, like PlumpJack, also takes its name from Shakespeare, who used the term to refer to the wine casks– or cades– shipped from Bordeaux to England during Elizabethan times. The CADE Estate logo can also trace its inception to the property, where a particular Manzanita tree, rooted in front of the winery building, gave birth to the red tree symbol, both in shape and color. In fact, the path towards the winery is intentionally carved around this special tree, to preserve the interplay between natural and architectural spaces.
Today, Winemaker Danielle Cyrot continues to craft high elevation Cabernet Sauvignon that articulates the intense, powerful character of our estate while maintaining a balance of mountain fruit, firm acidity and judicious oak for layered, complex wines that reflect approachability and age ability – this nuanced, artisanal expression that we refer to as Modern Howell Mountain.