Conn Creek’s 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Spring Mountain District is a limited-production wine in the winery’s AVA Series, a lineup intended to show how Napa Valley sub-appellations express themselves. It’s priced at $125 and slated for a Spring 2026 club release. While technical details are scarce, multiple reviewers note it is **100% Cabernet Sauvignon**, and the winery’s own vintage note references a year that “started off under drought conditions.”
Critical reception is strong, led by an **excellent 95-point review from Decanter**. Decanter calls the wine “attractive and spellbinding,” highlighting “wonderfully fragrant black currants, graphite, and tobacco” with “fragrant cedarwood.” On the palate, it’s described as “medium to full-bodied with soft, seductive black cherry and spiced plum fruits,” and the structure is driven by “intensely powerful mountain tannin” carrying “Bay Laurel and sagebrush notes through an extended, invigorating finish.” Decanter also notes winery context: Conn Creek was founded in 1973, is best known for “Bordeaux-styled wines,” and winemaker Elizabeth DeLouise-Gant has been in the role since 2017.
**Jeb Dunnuck’s 94-point** take emphasizes a more assertive mountain profile. He notes a “darker core of black and blue fruits” plus “iron, black olives, and leafy herbs,” calling it “a masculine, structured Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon.” Dunnuck suggests patience, saying it “will benefit from 3-4 years in the cellar and cruise over the following 15 years or more.”
**The Wine Palate also scores it 94**, describing a “deep garnet-purple” wine where “fresh plums, black currants, and boysenberries jump from the glass,” followed by “charcoal, dried herbs, and black olives.” They find a “full-bodied palate…taut with muscular black fruits,” supported by “firm, grainy tannins” and “beautifully knit freshness,” finishing “long and earthy.”
Overall, this is a firmly structured, classically styled Spring Mountain Cabernet with dark fruit, savory herbal complexity, and the kind of tannin profile that rewards cellaring.
