Winophilia

During ten action-packed days of tasting in Napa Valley this month, I focused on the wines in front of me and attempted to ignore pricing that in many cases is grossly out of whack with today’s straitened times.  By most accounts, smaller producers known for high quality and (relatively) moderate prices continue to sell their wines, particularly those from the widely praised and mostly superb 2007 vintage.  But when wines surpass $100 a bottle, and especially when prices head north of $200, sales slow dramatically—especially since even the swankiest restaurants have been extremely hesitant to restock their cellars with expensive items.  Plenty of pricey collectible wines continue to be consumed by American winos, but today they’re more likely to do it in the privacy of their own homes, and much less likely to pay steep restaurant mark-ups for the privilege.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle that appeared during my time in Napa predicted a wave of winery foreclosures in the year ahead and suggested that 7% of Napa Valley’s wineries suffered from very weak finances or were “on life support.”  Land prices have come down from their 2007 peaks, while consumers have gravitated toward much less expensive wines.  Not surprisingly, winery owners who paid top prices for their properties earlier this decade and then invested heavily in vineyard development, state-of-the-art equipment and expensive consulting winemakers, are generally in the greatest distress and are the least likely to be able to refinance their mortgages.  Their first releases appeared in the marketplace at nosebleed levels, and today they are paying the price.  Many are apparently hoping for a miracle rather than actively seeking buyers, and some of them will eventually default on their loans.

Another reason for pessimism on the part of producers is that while consumers have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the 2007s—the current cabernet vintage for many Napa wineries—it is already clear that they will not view 2008 or 2009 with such across-the-board enthusiasm.  As readers of my International Wine Cellar are aware, I’m not one to make vintage generalizations:  I prefer to taste everything and talk about specific wines rather than their vintages.  That said, after having tasting scores of 2008 cabernet-based wines, I couldn’t generalize about this year even if I wanted to.

A wild growing season.  Clearly, 2008 was a year of extremes, beginning with brutal early-season frost that was especially damaging during the month of April.  Valley floor vineyards in spots that usually see low nighttime temperatures were particularly hard-hit, while many vineyards at higher altitude—especially those on relatively steep slopes, where the frost finds it harder to settle—were less affected.  Growers with frosted vines had to deal with irregular ripening, even within the same clusters, all summer long, and needed to decide whether to retain their second-generation fruit—and then worry about whether it would ripen properly.

The flowering was difficult in some areas due to some unusually chilly days at the end of May followed by a heat spike in early June.  The serious fires that caused smoke damage during the drought summer in many vineyards in Mendocino County and Anderson Valley, as well as in some spots along the Sonoma Coast, only contributed to consumers’ wariness about the 2008 vintage.  (In fairness, it must be said that most smaller, quality-conscious producers who normally work with vineyards in the most affected areas either did not buy this fruit in 2008, or did not bottle it.  Some simply sold it off, while others may have declassified it into larger, cheaper regional bottlings.)

The summer of 2008 featured some sharp heat spikes, the worst of which occurred from late August through the first week of September.  But the next two weeks were dry and cooler than normal, and growers who could let their fruit hang generally began to harvest under very good conditions, without feeling rushed.  October remained dry, and temperatures continued to fluctuate radically between very warm and unusually cool for the month.

Some outstanding wines for all the challenges.  Despite the season of fire and ice, I found a lot to like in the barrel samples of 2008 cabernets I sampled.  Tasted next to the 2007s, the ’08s are generally less fleshy but more obviously fruit-driven.  They are concentrated wines (the crop level was down significantly following the frost damage and a very dry spring, considerable crop-reduction during the summer, and strict selection at the time of harvest) but they are rarely overripe or heavy.  I’d call them midweights by California standards, whereas many 2007s are more opulent wines.  A majority of the winemakers I met with, especially those of the French persuasion, described the 2007s as quintessential California wines, while the 2008s are in a more classical style.  Still, a number of winemakers were quick to say that the 2008s are gaining weight in barrel, and the successful wines have the mid-palate stuffing to buffer their often serious tannins (wines made from less thoroughly ripe fruit can come off as skinny or dry).  The tannins in the better wines were surprisingly refined—often much more so than those of the 2006s, which can come off as rustic by comparison.

I should point out that blogger Alder Yarrow (vinography.com) described the 2008s he tasted at the Premiere Napa Valley auction in February as mostly “huge, brawny and rich.”  When I mentioned to him that I had a different impression of this vintage, he pointed out that the “theme” at this year’s auction seemed to be the inclusion of an extra helping of petit verdot in the limited special lots (usually five cases only) offered to bidders.  Petit verdot in larger than homeopathic doses can often give cabernet-based wines a more muscular character.  Yarrow noted that he would not be surprised if some winemakers hoping to impress early tasters and stimulate buying interest in their offerings sought to make bigger wines from the 2008 vintage.

A high percentage of the 2008s show a pronounced minerality, as well as captivating floral lift that may be due in many instances to the inclusion of ripe, high-quality cabernet franc.  In fact, as I tasted a few hundred 2007s and 2008s side by side, I found myself gravitating to a number of 2008s due to their aromatic purity, freshness, intensity and overall balance.  They will be approachable relatively early but the best of them will benefit from at least four or five years of aging.  I had the impression that the 2007s will give more pleasure early owing to their sheer sweetness and lush tannins, but they might also have the greater density to outlive the 2008s.  Yes, the 2007s are rich wines, and some of them showed a slightly roasted quality from an element of desiccated berries or over-extraction, but the best of them, especially those from Napa Valley’s elite sites, are plenty fresh and wonderfully delineated.

Buy wines, not vintages.  In sum, it would be a shame if consumers obsessed over 2007 while ignoring the many outstanding wines made in 2008, especially in light of the fact that many cabernet producers may have no choice but to lower their prices in the latter vintage.  Tasting notes on up to a thousand new North Coast releases will be published in the May/June issue of the International Wine Cellar, scheduled to go live in the first half of May.

One final note:  yes, there was a deluge on October 12 of 2009, followed by several humid days and then more rainfall, but much of the fruit was in by then, and many wineries are extremely happy with the quality of wines they made.