La Jota's 1989 Cabernet Sauvignon is more evolved and forward than usual. The huge, earthy, weedy, tobacco, and blackcurrant-scented nose is followed by a rich, generously endowed, satiny-textured wine that coats the palate and finishes with impressive quantities of fruit, glycerin and alcohol. Most Howell Mountain Cabernets start life with a hard, firm, tannic edge, but this offering is pure suppleness and pleasure. Drink it over the next 10-12 years. This offering, another stunning success from the 1989 vintage, continues to suggest that shrewd buyers will take a closer look at this generally maligned vintage. While there are plenty of disappointing wines, particularly among the whites, some of the reds are a match in quality and complexity for other top vintages from Napa Valley during the eighties.