Mike Dunn

The Essentials Winemaking at Dunn Vineyards in Angwin is shaped by continuity more than reinvention. Mike Dunn returned to his family’s winery in 2000, but the site had already been part of his working geography since 1978, when the Dunn family moved from Davis to Howell Mountain and settled into the old stagecoach house on the property. That early move tied the property to daily life: the hill, the family place, and the work of caring for both were never far apart. The value of that kind of attachment is practical as much as personal. A family property is not just inherited acreage; it is a fixed reference point for vineyard decisions, seasonal labor, and long familiarity with what the site will and won’t give. In Mike Dunn’s case, Angwin and Dunn Vineyards frame the work as a return to a place already known from the inside, with the old stagecoach house standing as part of the property’s continuity rather than a decorative detail.

Signature

Mike Dunn's signature wines include 1979 Dunn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and Dunn Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet. Those bottles locate the work squarely in the estate’s own naming and its sense of place: one marked by Howell Mountain, the other by Napa Valley. The 1979 Dunn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon registers the vineyard’s history, while Dunn Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet extends that identity more broadly within the winery’s range. The signature here is not about display; it is about consistency between site and bottle. The return to Dunn Vineyards in 2000 gives those wines their context, since the vineyard had already been part of Mike Dunn’s life from age 12, after the family’s move in 1978 to the old stagecoach house on the property. The work reads as an ongoing conversation with that ground, not a departure from it.