Moving to the QUINTVS cuvee, this can be thought of as the second wine of the estate, yet it sees the same elevage and winemaking as the top wine, spending 22 months in new barrels. The 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon QUINTVS certainly doesn’t taste like a second wine and it offers incredible, full-bodied notes of chocolate laced black fruits, violets, bay leaf, and loads of cedary herbs. This is a quintessential Howell Mountain Cabernet that’s drinking brilliantly today yet will cruise for another two decades or more.