I was at my local wineshop The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan to taste a vertical run of Hillwalker Vineyards of Mount Veeder.  Mount Veeder is an AVA in the southwest hills of Napa Valley, and famed for its Cabernet Sauvignon wines.  I had a chance to meet and chat with Kevin Morrison, who is the owner and winemaker at Hillwalker Vineyards, and he is a former Michigander.  The Fine Wine Source has acquired a quarter of the production of the three vintages from the estate.

We started with Hillwalker Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder Napa Valley 2019.  The vineyard is now twenty years of age, and it is starting to produce it own wines.  The vineyard is 1600 feet above sea level, and is all organic, no pesticides, no machines for harvest, cow and horse plows, no irrigation, only dry farming.  This wine had an extended Maceration period of twenty-five days and aged for twenty months in French Oak, of which twenty-five percent was new.  The wine is sixty percent Cabernet Sauvignon and forty percent Merlot.  A deep red wine that offered notes of black fruit, blue fruit, rose petals and terroir.  On the palate there were tones of black cherry and blueberry, oak, pepper, with blended tannins, terroir, and a nice long finish.  This was not a typical California Cabernet that was a jammy fruit bomb to curry favors with the current wine tasters, this was an elegant Old School Napa, when they were more Medoc-centric and not trying to keep up with the neighbors.

We then had the Hillwalker Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder Napa Valley 2020.  Now 2020 was a bad year for Napa Valley and the fires, but the fires were on the east side of the valley and Mount Veeder on the west side of the valley experienced virtually no smoke during the growing season. The owner/winemaker Keven Morison said that he is still experimenting as he proceeds, and this wine was eighty percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and twenty percent Merlot.  He also does his own crush-work, and he allowed twelve days for Initial Fermentation and then aged for twenty months in twenty-five percent new French Oak, and the balance in neutral French Oak; he also did a little testing using a glass carboy which allowed no air in.  The wines are aged in a cave onsite using indigenous yeast.  A deep dark red wine that offered notes of dark fruit, pomegranate, violets, dark chocolate, pepper, tobacco, and sous bois.  On the palate this wine offered tones of black cherry, black currants, ripe figs, baking spices, cocoa, tight tannins, and a long finish of fruit tones. Once again, this wine was not a fruit bomb from Napa Valley made to please a few writers and critics, this wine was old Napa, or the Medoc and to please the winemaker.  A great wine for cellaring.   

The lucky customers and clients that came for the tasting also got a chance to try the Hillwalker Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder Napa Valley 2021 which was only being sold on a pre-pay program with delivery in the fall of this year, which tells me that there is some bottle aging done as well, before release.  This wine is still a work in progress for the winemaker as he is definitely not doing a cookie-cutter wine.  This wine was eighty-five percent Cabernet Sauvignon and fifteen percent Merlot.  More experimentation as this wine had Initial Fermentation for twenty-eight days using indigenous yeast and then aged in a combination of eighty percent concrete tanks and twenty percent new French Oak.  A deep red wine that offered notes of dark fruits, violets, dark chocolate, and sous bois.  On the palate there were tones of black cherry, currants, figs, baking spices, cocoa, tight tannins, and a long finish of fruit.  After two wines that were classic old-school Napa or Medoc, this wine at first surprised me, as it wasn’t following the same pattern and had a much fresher taste and only as we continued talking and taking notes did the finish get longer and bolder and this wine kept growing and growing on me.  I was one of the first people to try the wine and since this wine was still not even issued, I thought it would be in poor-taste for me, to ask for a second, but the finish totally impressed me.