Proudly not conforming to type…
21 July 2020

The Cain Wines are as stylistically interesting as they are conceptually engaging.” Kelli A. White, Napa Valley, Then & Now. “Christopher Howell deserves more recognition for the amazing consistency, longevity and sophistication that his wines from this striking Spring Mountain site routinely achieve, as anyone with Cain bottlings in their cellar from the 1980s and 1990s can attest”, William Kelley, Decanter.com    Read More

We are delighted to be able to offer a parcel of 2010 Cain Concept, imported earlier this year directly from the winery cellars. A mature, thought-provoking, soulful Napa, drinking beautifully, for under £50 a bottle all in.

We’re huge fans of the wines Chris Howell produces up on Spring Mountain, but they’re not your everyday Napa reds. Cain Five, from a vineyard situated at 1800-2100 ft is one of Napa’s most complex, often misunderstood wines. It is a wild, compelling, haunting wine that undeniably tastes like the wildflowers that cohabit the vineyard, a wine full of soul and a sense of place.

A keen believer in the power of place, Chris also produces Cain Concept, from grapes grown down in the famed Napa Benchlands. These gently sloping sites are home to many of Napa’s most illustrious wines, and so it should be no surprise that Cain Concept treads a more immediately recognisable path than Cain Five. But through gentle farming, early harvesting, adherence to wild yeast fermentations, and sensitive but active winemaking, Concept is imbued with the same signatures of complexity, texture, depth and energy that makes all the Cain wines so alluring.

2010 was a cool Napa vintage and one that is gaining plaudits all the time. Indeed, the Vinous vintage chart rates it the top vintage between 1991 and 2013. This is a 2010 that is a treat to drink today, a wine full of texture and charm, silky and smooth with a wonderful sense of flow to it. Concept 2010 is Napa for Right Bank Bordeaux drinkers, all chocolate and wildflowers, sweet plums, pipe tobacco and graphite. It’s currently sitting comfortably in a very relaxed window of drinking, a wine that is so much more sensual than almost all European 2010 cabernet blends are at present, a lovely inviting combination of Napa charm and Bordeaux complexity.