The link was originally posted in the Clos du Val thread. It’s not that most of this hasn’t been discussed previously, but this expression seems to be unique. Embracing “Napa Valleyness” is a decision that Shafer made long ago and it has served them well. As stated in the link, I find the idea of picking according to anthocyanin and pyrazine levels, as opposed to Brix, to be both an interesting and sound approach. All Change for Napa Stalwart | Wine-Searcher News & Features
Why not? Embrace it. Ignore the haters. Everyone else in the world wishes for good vintages and Cali gets them 80% of the time. I’m tired of the whining from people who wish for something other than the great bounty of ideal weather that Cali provides.
When wine stops being about food and becomes a fashion symbol, is that good for wine lovers?
Beef Wellington was quite chic in the 60s, cuisine minceur in the 70s, and paprika dusted dinner plates in the 80s. Fashion changes and the vineyard guys cash out and maybe the vineyard becomes a golf course or hotel because people lost interest in a $175 wine.
“Napa Valleyness” is far more egregious than “Cali Wines”. I have lived here a long time.
How so? I can’t see the Bordelais shirking from their “Bordeauxness”.
Not embracing napa for napa is lame.
The afwe crowd would rather have a stale flavorless orange instead of a nice juicy ripe one, wilted lettuce over crisp bright greens or a cheap cut of steak from a milk cow instead of a choice cut from angus cattle.
And I am happy to let them have it.
That’s kind of a straw man. Who picks based primarily on Brix? For decades California winemakers have been saying they pick based on physiological ripeness rather than Brix. That’s the rationale for picking Brix levels that lead to 14.5% finished wines.
A Napa Valley wine with 13.7% alcohol is just as much of a Napa Valley wines as one with 14.9% alcohol.
What makes something Napa Valley-ish?
Any wine that has a minimal quantity of pyrazine is a wine that is of potential interest to me.
Maybe that’s the point. Those ripe St. Emilions are just as much Bordeaux as the leaner Paulliacs. As one of the players here has as his signature: “Ripe fruit isn’t necessarily a flaw.”
13.7 in napa is intentional. 14.9 is not. 13.7 in napa is like 16.9 in bordeaux. compare the average temps
Not so much.
Please tell me what is the essence of Napa Valley? I doubt it’s stewed plums. Same for St. Emilion. 1974 Mondavi Reserve is much more Napa Valley to me than most of the uber-ripe Cabs selling for $300/bottle. Cathy Corison and Steve Matthiasson (to name 2 winemakers) are more heirs to that '74 Mondavi than the trophy cabernets.
I’m not sure what the bolded part means. It’s a choice either way.
If you mean that 16.9 in Bordeaux and 13.7 in Napa are both “unnatural” or not expressive of the location, then how do you explain that many of the great Napa cabs of the 70s were well under 14%?
That’s fine. No one can quarrel with your preferences.
I just don’t think you can say that’s the essence of “Napa-ness.” Once upon a time, Napa cabs tended to have more green olive and green pepper notes. Critics’ fondness for powerful wines that were more fruit-driven pushed producers toward later picking, higher Brix, and a different flavor profile. I remember reading once that marketing surveys also found that consumers preferred cabs without those green aromas (presumably that was research on mass-market wines).
But are today’s 14.5% and 15.5% cabs more the “essence” of Napa than, say, Mondavi cabs or BV Reserves of the 70s and 80s that were much lower in alcohol and had more olive notes? I don’t think so. It’s a conscious shift in style.
Saying it’s dictated by the environment just ignores wines made in Napa a generation ago, and current producers who are successful in a less ripe style (Corison, to name one).
°**Warning: Thread Drift Ahead!**°
For years, my gripe with Napa’s layout was the same as my current grievance concerning the Sonoma Coast: the expansion of geographical AVA boundaries to the point where the phrase “Napa Valley” (or, as the case now stands, “Sonoma Coast”) is almost meaningless.
I was turned off by large-scale production bottlings padded with fruit from Pope Valley, Chiles Valley, Conn Valley, American Canyon, Wooden Valley, Wild Horse Valley, etc. You don’t have to be a cartographer to see that these areas fall outside of the actual Napa Valley.
One day, I read the Wine & Spirits magazine article “Napa Valley Satellites” by Rod Smith (June, 2003). The author admitted that business priorities helped shape the massive AVA we know today. According to the piece, an owner of hundreds of acres in Pope Valley, Butte Oil & Gas Co, played a large part in getting the proposed AVA boundaries expanded when the petition was filed with the BATF in 1980. In 1983, Napa Valley officially became an American Viticultural Area, its original outline now considerably enlarged.
Mr Smith mentioned the historical inclusion of outlying sites’ grapes in many nationally distributed Napa Valley wines, but he focused on the merits of wines derived solely from the boonies (Grgich Hills’ whites from American Canyon, St Supery’s “Dollarhide Ranch” of Pope Valley, Buehler Estate’s home in Conn Valley…). The relatively high quality of these border regions, according to the article, seemed to validate their association with the more prestigious North-South chain of sub-appellations. I don’t think this sufficiently redeems what amounts to a valley that isn’t a valley. 
I would be more pleased with “Napa County” appearing on wine labels than “Napa Valley” if the wines in question include a healthy percentage from East of the Vaca Range.
Anyways…
I think that the post-phyloxera replanting, reorienting of Napa vineyards - not to mention changes in clonal/ms choices - have been as much behind the “Napa Valleyness” discussed in this thread’s OP as winemakers’ and consumers’ tastes. If a person doesn’t like the flavors that are fairly common in Napa Cabs, I don’t think he/she will have any difficulty finding wines that align more harmoniously with his or her palate. The end.
Are 86 Bordeaux more the essence of Bordeaux than the 82’s? One can argue ad nauseum how ripe is too ripe, how green is too green, and how much alcohol is too much. But as a business, are you going to make a product that appeals to 2% or 98% of potential buyers? Napa, unlike Europe until recently, has not had to struggle to get fully ripened fruit, both sugar and phenolics. So, of course it’s a matter of taste preferences. And there aren’t many who have wines from the 70’s and 80’s as their reference.
i didnt mean to bold if that was on my end. as an extention of what i said, i think the alcohol levels of the 70s were somewhat intentional as well. the style of winemaking is the 70s for the most part was to imitate/replicate bordeaux. other less intentional differences lbetween now and the 70s is vine density, clones, farming, water usage, and global warming.
consumers like a certain style. this style is generally to drink younger wines, with sweeter oak and integrated tannins, less pyrazimee, which just so happen to be higher in alcohol. to me and many others, these happen to be tasty and fun.
if i polled 50 non drinkers of wine and 50 wine consumers, for a total of 100, how many would say group 1 (corison, togni, mayacamas, forman, diamond creek) is more fun and tastier than group 2 (maybach, bevan, orin swift, pott, outpost) ?
again, this is not considering price and quality of wine, just fun, pleasurable, and yummy. its 2017. and we are talking about a consumer good.
I have a bunch of 2015s ready to go out for offer at 13.1% ABV. Guess I’ll have to drink them myself…which has been my plan all along in case I get “stuck” with an unsaleable wine.
Great thread!
Michael, I find that the green pepper notes tend to go away relatively quickly. Do you notice that or do you find they linger too long? Maybe this is an issue where there are different detection levels.
We used to call it a Rutherford Bench thing. Shows up heavily in Groth Reserve, but tends to “blow off,” IMO.
I also think there is some weird new fondness for some presence of Brettanomyces that I don’t like and this tends to exaggerate green peppers notes.
I also think ultra sorting steals a little bit of the old Napa-ness that used to be more pronounced.
Maybe this low level Brett notes are replacing what we lost to finer sorting.
I don’t generally don’t come across a lot of green Napa Valley Cabs, with the exception of the 2011’s of course. I don’t mind a little cedar, but find bell pepper to be distasteful.