Does Napa Have too Much Cab?
I think not…
Napa County has more Cabernet Sauvignon than ever, but it still is a little less than half of the grapes planted, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Currently, Napa County has about 20,000 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, 7000 acres of Chardonnay, 5000 acres of Merlot, 3000 acres each of Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, 1500 acres of Zinfandel and 1000 acres of Cabernet Franc.
Salute and Shalom !!!
Well… it’s generally what seems to do well there. They could grow more syrah, grenache or pinot but that doesn’t mean I’d buy any of it. Wrong place.
Those numbers include Carneros, so it makes sense that they include a decent amount of Chardonnay/Pinot Noir/etc. Given that, there’s a limit to how high the Cab Sauv % can (or should) go.
no
Burgundy definitely has too much Pinot. Throw some Sangiovese in there. Make a blend.
Yes. Prices should drop.
And somebody, maybe not the producer, is printing money out there. $7000 per ton???
It’s standard talking points from everybody to n Napa. We don’t really make money doing this. Amazingly enough, these same people are pretty wealthy anyways.
I just came back from Napa, with a few exceptions, there’s a lot of overpriced cab in Napa.
Overpriced Petite Sirah too.
The thought almost makes me cry – Burgundy will never have too much Pinot (so long as there’s also Chardonnay!)
Burgundy has more bad Pinot than Napa has good cab.
it took me longer to understand this than it probably should’ve, but I’m on the same page as you about this – though it says more about how scarce good napa cabs are, than it does about how many bad burgs there are!
One can never have too much Napa cab… unless it’s thin, picked before phenolic ripeness, can be described as acidic, and meant to appeal to a NY somm.
Yeah, good Napa cabs are sooo hard to find.
I was looking for a ton of Cab Franc in 2015 and the price I was given was 11K/ton. I didn’t buy it.
But somebody did. Somebody was paid $11k. For 1 ton of grapes
That’s like 2 cents per grape
Well, since Napa is only 4% of California’s overall production, they don’t have too much of anything.
Using the old guideline for price per ton vs. bottle price(move decimal left 2 spaces), at $11,000 per ton thats a $110/bottle wine. Thats one hell of a Cab Franc!
Napa can do whatever they want, but they need to stop ripping-up the floor to plant the variety-du-jour.