Mountain Fire and Velvet Depth: Lokoya Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2016

The first pour is nearly black in the glass, edged with garnet firelight that flickers like embers in a hearth. It is a wine that commands stillness at the table, a reminder that not all pleasures are hurried. Even before the air has touched it, you sense the grip waiting within, a strength coiled beneath its surface. This is a wine that begs patience, and so the decanter becomes its temple: a full hour, maybe two, so that the mountain’s tight fist of fruit and stone can slowly unfurl into cedar, cassis, graphite, and the ghost of wild herbs carried by high-altitude winds. Served at 16–18 °C, it reveals both focus and generosity, and in a tall, tulip-bowled Bordeaux stem, its breath expands as though the mountain itself were whispering through the glass.

Summit Born, Earth Forged

This Cabernet Sauvignon is a child of Howell Mountain, a Napa appellation where elevation sharpens the edges of ripeness. Lokoya, Jackson Family’s high-elevation project, is dedicated to expressing these peaks vineyard by vineyard, and this bottling is among its most austere and commanding. The 2016 vintage was gathered under luminous skies, a year blessed with balance: no punishing droughts, no sudden heat spikes, only a steady rhythm of growing days and cool nights. The result was fruit that carried full concentration yet maintained energy, tension, and verve. Here, Cabernet finds a paradoxical voice: fruit fully ripe yet framed by stern tannin, its roots digging into volcanic tuff and rocky soils that yield power more than plushness. The mountain’s altitude brings cold nights that tether the grapes’ intensity with acidity as crisp as mineral spring water. What emerges is not indulgence, but discipline dressed in velvet, a wine that tells the story of its summit soils with unflinching clarity.

Nightshade and Ember Glow

Lift the glass and dark berries surge—blackcurrant, mulberry, even a hint of elderberry—layered with violets that seem pressed between pages of an ancient book. Dried sage and thyme rise next, a mountain breeze distilled into scent. A brush of French oak whispers its signature: smoke, clove, a curl of vanilla. The palate is commanding: full-bodied, driven by tannin (that gentle drying grip that holds wine upright through years of ageing) yet supple enough to allow fruit and minerality to glide together in a seamless current. Acidity carries the weight cleanly, sharpening each edge, stretching the flavors into a finish marked by cedar, crushed stone, and the faint echo of roasted espresso beans. It is mountain Cabernet at its most articulate, vivid in its youth yet built for the long road—drink now with the benefit of air, or trust it to deepen until 2036 and beyond. The story it tells is one of contrast: fire and restraint, abundance and austerity, earth and sky braided into a single voice.

Fireside Pairings

The language of this wine is structure, and the foods that speak it fluently are those rich in fat, salt, and savor. Roast lamb feels inevitable, its charred crust and rosemary-scented juices softening the tannins into silk. A ribeye steak seared with black pepper is another noble partner, the meat’s marbling answering the Cabernet’s intensity, while the herbal lift of the vineyard echoes in the oil and char. For those who walk a different path, wild mushroom ragù reduced slowly with thyme and butter draws the wine’s darker fruit to the surface. When stirred through creamy polenta crowned with aged Gruyère, it creates a cushion of fat and protein that tempers tannin while amplifying the mountain’s cedar and earth. Even side dishes find their voices here: pommes Anna crisped to golden edges seem tailor-made for its acidity, while root vegetables—parsnips, carrots, beets—caramelize into sweetness that resonates with the Cabernet’s fruit. A simple reduction of jus, concentrated and gleaming, mirrors the concentration of the wine itself, a reflection of vineyard discipline in culinary form.

The Vine’s Whisper

As I taste, I think of my brother Dumuzi, drawn each year into the underworld, leaving me to hold vigil in shadow until his return. This wine, too, lives in cycles: fierce in its youth, softened in maturity, each stage a descent and a rebirth. I, Geshtinanna, goddess of vine and scribe of memory, have always read the world through what is written in fruit and soil. In this bottle, I see the ledger of a mountain’s seasons: the scorching summer sun, the cool refuge of twilight, the silence of stone, and the slow resilience of vine roots twisting deeper each year. To drink it is to step into that rhythm, to honor both earth and time, to recognize that what is poured into your glass is not only flavor but history captured in liquid form.

A Closing Blessing

So let the Lokoya Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 be poured with patience, with good glass and steady hand. Give it the hour of breath it requires, give it the warmth of companionship at table, and give it foods bold enough to meet its gaze. You will find not just a pairing but a communion: mountain and table, vine and fire, memory and joy. In its depths lie stories still unfolding, destined to be told again in 2030, 2036, even 2040, as the tannins soften into song. To share it is to participate in the mountain’s own liturgy of endurance, a ritual that transforms the act of drinking into reverence.