Edition 30 | April 2020

Hello Mountain Wine Club!

As many of you know, Mother Nature limited the amount of wine available across Napa Valley in 2017. But every cloud has a silver lining, and because of this limitation, we’re able to offer something that we’ve never offered before and will likely not offer again: 2017 La Jota Vineyard Co. Malbec.

Malbec grows beautifully in our Howell Mountain vineyard, and is a variety rarely seen in the appellation. We grow a very small amount of it on Howell Mountain, normally just enough to include in our La Jota Cabernet Sauvignon blend. Due to an early harvest of Malbec in 2017, it’s one of the few wines we have from the vintage. That’s why we decided to make a 100% La Jota Malbec this year, exclusively for Mountain Wine Club.

The grapes for the 2017 La Jota Cabernet Franc come entirely from a small, hardy vineyard planted in 1976, located very near our nineteenth-century stone winery building. Grafted onto resistant St. George rootstock, this vineyard is one of few that have so far managed to escape the ravages of Phylloxera and is consequently among the oldest Cabernet Franc vineyards in Napa County.

“The 2017 Cabernet Franc Howell Mountain is very deep purple-black colored and gives expressive black cherries, kirsch, warm blackberries and boysenberry scents with touches of sawdust, red roses, camphor and cinnamon stick plus a waft of stewed tea. Full-bodied, the palate reveals a lot of depth with tons of red and black fruit layers and savory accents, framed by ripe, firm, grainy tannins, finishing with a refreshing lift and some mineral notions coming through.”
96 points, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Robert Parker Wine Advocate, October 2019