2017 Halpin Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Napa Valley

We were in Portugal this past September, glued to views of the Douro Valley from the back, middle seat of a BMW, when one text message plucked us out of that European serenity and turned our thoughts toward Napa’s prized Howell Mountain.

Halpin had messaged us with a formal interview request. He’d landed on “the mother lode of fruit” and wanted us to sample the wine—his 2017 Halpin Cabernet Sauvignon from all-estate Howell Mountain fruit in Napa. We’ve told some extravagant stories about Halpin before (all true), he acknowledged, but this time, he asked if we would just focus on the wine. “I’m a pretty private guy,” he reminded us. And that is true, but get some vintage Champagne in that man, and, well, it usually turns to a fireworks show.

Still, we agreed to the interview. Halpin traveled to our home office in Napa, California, and we sat around the tasting table to sip this latest release. How Halpin managed to secure fruit this good is a real shocker, because it’s the kind of sacred fruit money typically cannot buy. The Cabernet Sauvignon comes from a biodynamically farmed estate vineyard planted between 1,500 and 2,000 feet up Howell Mountain. These decades-old vines delivered a bountiful crop in 2017, and the winemaker—a 100-point French legend who has worked at Haut-Brion and Petrus—knows Halpin, and actually offered him the extra few tons. “Sheer luck,” as Halpin put it. 

With 92% Cabernet rounded out by Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, just eight barrels (200 cases) were produced. We can tell you that we’re quite familiar with the source winery, which produces a small amount of majestic mountain Cabernet which, supposing you can find any outside the winery, runs upwards of $250 a bottle. But the mailing list devours it all, so any market-bought bottles are frankly suspect. Halpin’s rendition is less than 1/4 of that.

Once in possession of the fruit, Halpin’s winemaker, Ry Richards, treated it to 22 months in French oak, of which just 30% was new. In the glass, the 2017 Halpin Howell Mountain Cabernet shows an inky dark black hue. Juicy and seductively silken, it showcases a pronounced core of concentrated blackberry and black cherry preserves, with muddled mountain blueberry underscored by roasted coffee bean and sun-scorched wild herbs, before finishing with powerful mountain tannins.

It’s the best wine of his we’ve tried to date, and we told him as much. “I like old school structure over fruit,” Halpin admitted. We said it was evident that the wine was indeed brilliantly structured. For fun, we looked up some Robert Parker reviews referencing the source winery, and the superlatives were mostly about structure, not fruit—not exactly an anomaly, but Parker’s descriptions can skew quite heavy on the fruit and flavor descriptors. Instead, we found phrases dedicated to the wine’s “full-bodied palate,” “fine-grained tannins,” and beautiful “framing” of flavors. “Firmly structured,” and “grainy” and “multilayered,” “lively,” and “lifting,” were among other oft-repeated words.

Halpin left the bottle after our short visit, and a day later it was still exuberant, a bit softer, but no less structured, and is a wine to drink now and often. If we were penning a column about the “Best Napa Cabernet Wines to Drink Right Now,” we’d include this 2017 Halpin Howell Mountain at the top of our list—only we can’t, since for now it’s only available on Wine Access.

Cheers, and thanks to Halpin for the visit. Here’s to those of you who are fortunate enough to secure bottles of his “mother lode” Cabernet.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 15.20%
• Enjoy right away
• Drink Up
• % Cabernet Sauvignon
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Cork