The 2019 Dunn Howell Mountain Was Wine Spectator's #6 Wine of the Year.
Same Vintage. Same Mountain.

Dear Artisans,

In 1975, a young UC Davis enology graduate named Randy Dunn took a job at a small Rutherford winery called Caymus. Over the next decade he created the wines that put Caymus on the map, including the 1984 Special Selection that Wine Spectator named its Wine of the Year. Caymus remains the only winery in history to win that honor twice, and both winning vintages were made under Randy Dunn's watch.

Then he walked away.

He left the valley floor in 1985 and climbed 2,000 feet up Howell Mountain, where he had quietly purchased 14 acres of Cabernet vines back in 1978. His first Dunn Vineyards wine, 660 cases of it, came off the mountain in 1979. He never looked back.

Randy Dunn didn't just make great Cabernet on Howell Mountain — he defined it. He co-authored the petition that established Howell Mountain as Napa Valley's first sub-appellation in 1983, then went on to consult for Pahlmeyer, La Jota, Livingston and Palmaz, names that now occupy their own rarefied place in California wine.

Today three generations of the Dunn family farm 42 acres on Howell Mountain, and production holds at roughly 4,500 to 5,000 cases a year. The wines are allocated almost entirely through the winery mailing list, where the wait stretches years. The winemaking has barely changed since 1979: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, fermented in stainless steel, aged 32 months in French oak.

Dunn is spoken of alongside Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle and Colgin. The difference is that Dunn has been doing it since 1979, longer than nearly all of them, and never priced itself into the stratosphere. That gap between reputation and price is the opportunity in front of you today.

Winemakers called the 2019 growing season “unremarkable,” and in Napa that is the highest compliment. Over 34 inches of winter rain, a warm and even summer with few heat spikes, slow phenolic ripening, and a harvest that stretched long into autumn. The result: wines of vivid freshness, deep concentration and impeccable structural balance.

Decanter declared 2019 a “beautifully classic vintage” and awarded five perfect 100-point scores to individual Napa Cabernets. Vinous' Antonio Galloni called the wines “high energy” with “laser focus.” James Suckling found “focused and fruity reds with gorgeous depth and intensity without being heavy.”

Critically, 2019 was the last clean, great Napa vintage before the Glass Fire devastated the 2020 harvest — free of the smoke that touched parts of 2017 and much of 2020. That alone makes it a cellar cornerstone.

The Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet 2019, made from the same mountain and the same vintage year, took the #6 spot in Wine Spectator's 2023 Top 100. That wine has been sold out and unavailable for over a year.

The Napa Valley bottling in front of you draws 76% of its volume from that same Howell Mountain fruit, from the same 2019 harvest, and carries five critical scores between 93 and 95 points. It is $119.99. There are 41 bottles.

Same vintage. Same appellation. Same grape. Very different prices.

On a serious steakhouse list anywhere in the country, a Napa Cabernet of this pedigree carries a 2.5 to 4x markup. You would see this wine at $300 to $500 per bottle, poured alongside Opus One and Insignia.

At $119.99, you are acquiring it for less than a single glass of Screaming Eagle costs at any auction dinner in the country.

Fine wine has delivered over 37% appreciation in the last decade, and Knight Frank's Luxury Investment Index has tracked collectibles outperforming the S&P 500 since 2005. But the number that matters here is simpler: Dunn has never been priced in line with its reputation. While Harlan and Screaming Eagle command four and five figures, the Napa bottling has held steady around $130–$150 at retail. Dunn Howell Mountain bottlings from the 1980s now trade at auction for $200 to $400 a bottle, from an estate that was half its current size.

The math today: Wine-Searcher's average for the 2019 sits near $130, and most retailers with remaining stock ask $140–$165. Artisan has it at $119.99 — under the market average, and $30 under typical retail. A case runs $1,439.88 against $1,800 at the going rate: $360 saved, effectively three free bottles.

For context, an entire case of Dunn at Artisan costs less than three bottles of Opus One 2019, and less than a single bottle of Harlan Estate 2019. When these 41 bottles are gone, the next ones come from the secondary market at a premium. This is a mailing-list wine. It does not sit on shelves.

“Isn't Dunn too tannic? Too old-school?”

Not this one. The 2019 is the most elegant, approachable Dunn in recent memory. At just 13.7% alcohol, remarkably low by Napa standards, Wine Advocate called it “rather forward (for Dunn)” and said it “comes close” to plush. It is also the first vintage to include Coombsville fruit from the newly acquired Eagle Summit Vineyard, which adds a roundness previous vintages did not have. It drinks beautifully now and rewards patience through 2039.

“Why a full case instead of a bottle or two?”

Because the magic of Dunn is in the evolution. A single bottle gives you one data point; a case gives you a fifteen-year conversation with the wine:

A case of Dunn is not 12 bottles. It is 12 moments, spaced across your life, and at $1,439.88 the whole case costs less than one bottle of Screaming Eagle on the secondary market.

Dunn's vineyards sit between 1,850 and 2,100 feet, well above the 1,400-foot fog line that defines the AVA. At this altitude the vines get more hours of sunlight at cooler overall temperatures, and yields average roughly 2 tons per acre — half the valley floor. Smaller berries, thicker skins, extraordinary concentration and mineral depth.

The 2019 draws 76% from Howell Mountain and 24% from Coombsville, the cooler southern AVA James Suckling has compared to Pauillac. Meager volcanic soils, organic farming since 2016, and three generations of one family farming one grape on one mountain since 1979.

100% Cabernet Sauvignon, fermented in stainless steel and aged 32 months in French oak, exactly as it has been done since 1979. At 13.7% alcohol it is the most elegant and approachable Dunn in recent memory: currants, black cherry and violets now, with the tobacco-and-graphite mountain complexity waiting underneath.

Randy Dunn built Howell Mountain's reputation before most of today's cult producers existed. The 2019 is the most elegant vintage in recent memory, from the same harvest that put Dunn at #6 in the world on Wine Spectator's list, and it is priced $30 under what anyone else still charges.

There are 41 bottles, with a limit of one case per collector. When they are gone, the next bottles come from the auction market.

Cheers,

— James Tran