All this means is “vintage of a generation” is right around the corner so be sure to take your full allocations (+wishlist) now so you dont fall off the list and lose out on your 2024/5/6s!
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Shan
Interesting second question - “wondering aloud whether a vintage with very high yields may lend itself to a “hole in the middle” (and thus at risk of not being a GOAT).” – I’ve spent some time calculating out Grape Yields (using the CA Grape Crush Report) and Grape Acreage (using the CA Grape Acreage Report) and corresponding tons per acre. When one looks at 2023 it comes in at 4.184984227 tons per acre. That’s a healthy number - but less than 2000, 1997, 1992, and 1991. It’s only about 7% higher than 1978. Given what I would guess was about 600 vines per acre in 1978 and I’d guess an average of 1100 vines per acre now - it is actually significantly less in pounds per vine. – What all does this mean? Probably only time will tell, but I don’t know that the number is so high that it creates a qualitative issue (by the way, 2023s yields are about 12% lower than 1997.
Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
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Appreciate the data and insight in your posts, Adam. Thanks.
This is the most common description I’ve head of when speaking about 2023. Thanks for adding yet another person who said it!
I strongly disagree here. I have not availed myself to be an expert on 2020 Napa Cabernets, but the few dozen I have had all showed very dry, and unpleasant tannins. If you have any that are not showing that, I might be curious to try at the right price, but I haven’t found a single 2020 Napa Cabernet that was worth drinking thus far.
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VHR, Dalla Valle, favia, Cathiard, Spottswoode and Rudd. I also tasted Groth and Faust none of which showed drying tannins, Dominus yes. You have to be selective , however I don’t agree that all wines shows these characteristics.
I think Antonio is generally too generous in his scoring of Napa, especially some bigger wines that I am not a fan of, but I do think he always publishes what he believes, even if it hurts his access w/ winemakers. That has certainly been the case with several wineries now in Piedmont. So my tastes may not align with his (in Napa or in Piedmont in some cases), but I do feel he expresses a genuine POV that is his own. I can’t say the same about other wine publications, at least in Piedmont where I personally taste widely (anyone scoring recent Giacosa wines in the high-90s is best ignored I think).
Overall, these reviews seem a bit tepid, only in the context of Napa pricing. Given the prices of Napa wines, they effectively need to be genuine high-90s point wines to be worth buying, in most cases.
The 2022s especially I am sure will be tough to move. As someone on a few lists in Napa who buys sporadically, at the prevailing list prices, it’s a stretch to justify paying the price in a great vintage in the first place. It doesn’t feel like there is any “consumer surplus” if you will in even a great vintage. So when 2022 rolls around, it’s difficult to want to buy that wine for the same list price when the quality of what’s in the bottle doesn’t justify the price, because in the better vintages, you’re not getting a deal either. If you’re buying MacDonald or something at list price, then you can justify sticking it out for 2022 because you’re getting a deal on 2021 and 2023, but it’s different at most wineries.
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I had the Spottswoode, and did not enjoy it. It was thin, and it was a bit austere.
I had 3 bottles so far and none of them showed those characteristics, austere is the last word which comes to
mind.
r.e. AG’s “scathing” review of the '21 Bergman: I get both why your eyebrows were raised by the text and the 93 pt score for a $300 inaugural release and the challenges to your choice of adjectives as “scathing” raises expectations of something less glancing and more on the nose.
What I don’t get is the review.
I tasted at the estate in November. The wine was decanted about 4h prior and returned to the bottle at some point (not sure if it was a double-decant or had more time with greater surface area exposure).
It was a really impressive showing with great depth of fruit (which leaned toward red/mountain), a mineral lift, fine balance, and notable length - but felt locked up a bit behind the tannins. I commented that I was curious what a longer decant would do and they sent us home with the bottle in the name of science requesting we give them feedback.
What we tasted that evening, an additional 7h in the 1/2 filled bottle under cork (and with tired palates after 3 tastings that day), was remarkable. The fruit had expanded in profile and depth, every aspect was more delineated, and the length seemed endless and with perfect balance. My wife, with the better palate, had the look of glee.
My score went from 96-97 to 100.
AG views the perception of “some graniness in the tannins” as a significant fault and embarrassingly passe in the post-modern Napa, but I didn’t have the same reaction. I guess time will tell - he’s the pro. What I can agree with in the Vinous review is that “a few years in bottle” is seems wise.
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Thanks Adam! If Yields are lower, I may ask what you agree with regarding AG’s take on the 2023 vintage?
Then you must really think Jeb & LPB are off their rocker! I say this in jest & don’t have any data to back it up, but seem to remember a WB-er (@John_Morris ?) posting info along this line.
In my mind AG & Wine Spectator are typically on the low end of the wine scoring spectrum. WS strangely gives periodic bonus points for “good value.” AG seems to add points for every single aroma & flavor nuance however subtle, so rewards highly structured/complex wines with savory& herbal notes some riper Napa wines won’t have, which puts him in my wheelhouse.
I don’t have much experience with AG notes/scores for Italian wine, but his tasting notes for CA Cab I find very thorough & helpful. Maybe it’s just that over the years I’ve learned how to interpret his reviews, but after reading one I have about an 90% confidence rating whether or not I’ll like the wine which is better than any other reviewer (for me).
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Shan,
I think he’s right in that the wines are particularly embryonic at this stage and judging a vintage of classicism rather than pure size and this early stage is particularly difficult. I tend to think - from what I have tried - that 2023 is a superb vintage but not along the lines of what many modern Napa Cab drinkers prefer. It represents something of a throwback vintage - along the lines of 1999.
All of this from someone who doesn’t make Napa Cabernet and doesn’t have any to sell - but have just been fortunate to taste some.
Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
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The irony there is not lost
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I have bought exactly ZERO bottles of 2020 Napa/Sonoma Cabs……To me, there is no reason to take a chance on a vintage like that when there is an ocean of good/great wines at reasonable prices from really good vintages (2016, 2018, 2019, 2021) readily available from tons of online retailers……
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The ones I’ve tasted were either a) something someone else had bought, and they opened and wanted my opinion or b) were wines I had the opportunity to taste in a trade setting.
I bought my allocation of 2020 MacDonald, but that was it.
What I’ve tasted leads me to the same conclusion you had.
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I only bought Bedrock cuz I trust Morgan and Chris.
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I think 2022 was a difficult vintage where substantial declassification decisions made a huge difference in the final results for those that did that. I bulked out 62% of my fruit/wine, more than any vintage of mine from 2010-2023, except 2020, where I bulked out 100%. The result is… I adore my 2022 Cab. Many wineries, still economically stinging after the 2020 vintage, could not afford to bulk-out large quantities of their second vintage in three years, so they mostly put it all on the market.
As much as I feel AG was generally correct about 2022, I think he is way off on 2023, although he still has a year left to “see the light”, once they are in bottle. 
Love of Napa 2023 Cabs seems universal among winemakers I know and respect. At worst, it is in the league of 1987, 1991, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2013, 2018, 2019 and 2021. At best it beats all of them. In my opinion, based on tasting ferments as they happened, fruit on the vine in the lead to harvest and from barrels during the last year, it is one of the best vintages of my winemaking and wine collecting career.
What makes it so promising, imho, is three things…
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Longest hang-time ever. The weather was so mild that one could pick anytime one wished. Most winemakers hung as long as they wanted, allowing flavors to reach the exact range everyone wished for themselves.
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Mild ripeness. We had no heat waves worth mentioning, thus Brix did not reach their usual heights (unless the winemaker really wanted them to.) You could just pick the fruit and ferment it, as is. Ferments were easy, a sign of a good vintage.
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Acid levels. As in, higher than usual. For the same reason as #2, acids were retained more than any vintage I can remember since 2011. Unlike 2011, which struggled to ripen, that was not an issue in 2023. The result is there are very pretty acidic accents to 2023s that helps build a really pretty structure around wines from this vintage.
I think you can throw a dart next year with 2023 and hit excellence. The big Premier Napa Auction is two months away and I will taste 400 wines that week from 2023, so if my opinion changes, I will say so. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
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Thanks very much for this, Roy.
Not to besmirch Galloni, but do you think that the style of the vintage, which seems to perhaps emphasize balance or harmony above raw power, might give some folks who equate richness with quality some pause about declaring it a legendary year? That said, I’m sure a lot of producers made wines with ample richness and as someone who works with an importer/distributor that has a heavy focus on California I am very excited to see these down the road.
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I know this is a Napa cab thread, but were the 2023 conditions uniformly excellent in Sonoma and points south? thanks
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