Edition 25 | February 2019

Greetings from the Mountain Wine Club!

Sun-drenched days and cool nights at elevation add structure and help berries develop the acidity needed to produce deep aromas, flavors, colors, and tannins. The 2015 La Jota Vineyard Co. Howell Mountain Merlot and 2015 Restricted Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon are great representations of the quality of wine produced in the mountains of Napa Valley.

 The 2015 La Jota Merlot encompasses all that is mountain Merlot. Merlot has great depth, complexity, stature, and power, and some of the most expensive and sought-after wines in the world are Merlot-based. From Napa Valley's Howell Mountain, known for its rugged, rocky terrain, this wine has minerality, weight on the palate, and a structure to relish, with notes of espresso, dark chocolate, blackberry, and toast.

The 2015 Restricted Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is our members-only wine. It's made from our Yverdon Vineyard in Spring Mountain District, and shows floral and red fruit notes enhanced with a fine minerality. Spring Mountain is a place of constant discovery, with ocean bottom soils, volcanic rivulet soils, eons of biological mass, and an underground spring system that gives the mountain its name. Made exclusively for the Mountain Wine Club, Restricted is ever evolving and an intimate expression of some of the most isolated and iconic soils in Napa Valley.

I hope you share these small-production wines with your friends and family, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Peace,

Chris Carpenter, Winemaker