2011 Cornerstone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon White Label Napa Valley

Parker vs. Galloni: “Something bizarre and beautiful” on Howell Mountain Road

We’ve dined with Robert Parker once. With Antonio Galloni a half dozen times. Anyone who has enjoyed the company of both critics can’t help but understand why Parker once suggested that Antonio was the heir to the throne at The Wine Advocate.

While there are obvious differences in the path that led each man to the world of wine — Parker was first a practicing attorney, while Galloni attended Berklee College of Music before earning an MBA at MIT — in many ways, both men are cut from the same cloth. While we find both guys to be good listeners, each is decisive, quick to make a call as it pertains to a winemaker’s cellar protocol, growing techniques, and vintages.

For the most part, Parker and Galloni tend to agree far more frequently than they disagree. But in the case of Napa Valley’s out-of-the-ordinary 2011 growing season, the two most respected wine critics in the world published detailed vintage reports that reached somewhat different conclusions.

Galloni came out of the gate first. While staying in St. Helena in the summer of 2011, Antonio told us that he felt like he was in Piedmont, not Napa. A cloud of fog encased the valley floor. The mornings were cold and very damp. But when Galloni hopped in the car and took the drive up Howell Mountain Road, he wrote in Vinous, “something bizarre and beautiful happened.” The fog disappeared. It was no longer drizzling. Sunshine bathed Howell Mountain. “Above the fog line, everything was different,” Galloni reported. “2011 is a year where hillside vineyards are the stars. Most importantly, 2011 is a beautiful vintage through which to discover what makes Napa Valley’s best terroirs so compelling.”

Parker didn’t entirely disagree, also citing stellar 2011 performances from wineries working with top sites on Howell Mountain and Pritchard Hill, and even the well-draining vineyards in Oakville and Rutherford. Still, The Wine Advocate was more cautious in encouraging consumers to sock away cases of 2011s. While there are surely diamonds in the rough, Parker seemed to suggest, there were plenty of clunkers as well.

With this is in mind, in the first week of March 2015, we assembled a lineup of over a hundred 2011 Napa Valley Cabernets. We were careful to include wines from nearly every AVA. We ate bacon and eggs at 8 a.m. and took our seats at the tasting table at 10:30. At 2:30 p.m., our four-hour N.Y.C. Marathon concluded. Based on our tasting notes, both Parker and Galloni were correct.

Of the 125 wines evaluated, more than half were uninspiring. Nearly all of the wines drawn from deeper soils on the valley floor lacked depth and structure. A point for Mr. Parker. But particularly as we turned to the higher-elevation perches of Howell Mountain and Prichard Hill, where Colgin, Melanson, and O’Shaughnessy shined so brightly, true to the Vinous description of that “bizarre and beautiful” drive up Howell Mountain Road, it was as if we were evaluating another vintage altogether. Kudos to Mr. Galloni.

Twenty wines really stood out, nearly half comprised of Cabernet Sauvignon picked in mid- to late October (after the storm) on Howell Mountain. We contacted all 20 in the days that followed, hoping to negotiate healthy discounts on a 2011 vintage that was quickly overshadowed by 2012. Seven agreed to our terms, but none drawn largely from Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon.

Until today.

Drawn off Howell Mountain’s Ink Grade Vineyard (harvested in late October) and Oakville Station (adjacent to To Kalon), the 2011 Cornerstone Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley White Label is opaque purple in hue. Scents of blackberries, mountain blueberry, charcoal, graphite, and dried flowers, seemingly far more akin to a compact, well-defined 2010 than 2011. Rich, expansive, and plush on the attack, filled with a lavish mix of crushed black fruit preserves and violets, a splash of sweet crème de cassis, finishing with textbook Howell Mountain muscle. Drink now for its youthful bombast, or far better, lay this gorgeous 2011 down until the early 2020s. One of the great “diamonds in the rough” of the vintage.

$65 on release. Just $28 today — far and away the best price in America — only on WineAccess. Shipping included on 4.

• ABV 14.30%
• Enjoy right away
• % Cabernet Sauvignon