Napa’s Top Winemakers Weigh In – Robb Report

Lately, the bragging rights for a bottle of wine—particularly the West Coast’s Bordeaux-style reds—have more and more come from a outstanding vineyard title on the label, designating that each one (or, legally, most) of the fruit got here from that winery. Trigger and impact can most likely be argued, however the phenomenon actually coincides with winemakers’ rising give attention to fine-tuning the distinctive expression of a person place, versus recreating a well-liked—or high-point—model.  This observe is giving single winery–designated wines fascinating particular person character variations, and collectors’ cellars higher selection and curiosity.

Exhibit A on the arc of the development is Napa’s legendary Eisele Winery, first named on a label by Ridge Vineyards’ Paul Draper all the way in which again in 1971. Eisele has advanced into one of many valley’s most sought-after single-vineyard bottles made by the Araujo household, who purchased the land in 1990 and introduced on acclaimed winemaker Françoise Pechon in 1993. Wine lovers can take it from there and title the rising variety of Napa vineyards to chase, beginning with Beckstoffer To Kalon (or Beckstoffer something, actually).

Blended Magnificence

However as we speak I’m sipping Insignia, Napa Valley’s unique Bordeaux-style mix, created by forward-thinking Joe Phelps in 1974 and, since 2004, blended not solely from Bordeaux varieties but additionally from property vineyards in St. Helena, Rutherford, Oakville, Stags Leap District, Oak Knoll District and South Napa Valley. The 2018 ($315), inky and perfumed, retains providing extra magnificence because it unfolds, with earth and anise and floral aromas evolving to blue and black fruit spiced with cedar, cloves, and mint, then flowing throughout a beneficiant and juicy palate with black raspberry and plum, darkish chocolate, super-fine tannins and countless size.

Then again, does the wine hand over something for not displaying an uncommon streak of mountain herbs, say, or site-specific eucalyptus notes sufficiently subtle to be distinguished? Brooke Bobyak, who blends from nice Napa Valley sources for Far Niente’s Bella Union label (and who used to make single-vineyard wines for Nickel & Nickel), argues that the objective in mixing is to respect the character of every winery within the technique of crafting the very best wine. She spins the weather within the context of music: “One instrument, when performed by itself, like a violin, may be very elegant. However if you add and layer in a number of devices from a number of musicians who play properly collectively, a harmonious symphony is shaped.”

Chris Carpenter, winemaker for the much-awarded Cardinale Cabernet mix, in addition to single-vineyard wines below different extensively acclaimed labels, provides the music analogy much more layers by way of the understanding and talent essential to make a scrumptious composite. “Nice composers and tune writers perceive the highs, lows, timber, tonality, dynamics, and rhythm of sound. Taste has lots of those self same characters, and mixing wine for me is a technique to deliver the person points of the singular wines collectively. Consider an incredible orchestra, with its completely different sections—the brass, the strings, percussion, winds. Every is taking part in and contributing a singular sound to the general piece of music. And also you because the listener take pleasure in that for the complexity of sound, the emotion it sparks, the recollections it finds and the shared expertise with the viewers.” (Pause right here, simply to understand the poetry and metaphorical acrobatics from Carpenter.)

“Wine is precisely the identical,” he concludes, “besides you’re experiencing it as taste combos by means of the mixing course of.” And certainly, the seamless energy and sophisticated layers of minerality, darkish chocolate, and darkish fruit in his 2018 Cardinale Cabernet Sauvignon ($325)—which, in keeping with Carpenter, contains 7 appellations and 32 particular person wine heaps—appear simply able to inspiring profound emotion and recollections.

Extra is Extra

If notes from a single violin may be beautiful, and the layers of sound from a whole orchestra grand, does it comply with {that a} wine blended from completely different vineyards in Napa Valley, say, can truly be higher than the sum of its components? Sam Kaplan, winemaker for Memento Mori, whose flagship wine is a mix of the most effective fruit from a number of legendary vineyards chosen off the highest earlier than he creates single-vineyard wines from those self same sources, says sure. “Blends make it attainable to take the most effective from a few of Napa Valley’s prime vineyards and make one thing altogether new and fully unique. Although these websites can converse for themselves in single-vineyard designates, I like attending to play matchmaker with a few of the finest winery sources from all through Napa Valley and tasting how phenomenal the ultimate consequence may be within the bottle.”

Adriel Lares, one of many three co-founders of Memento Mori, drives the greater-than-parts level house for non-musicians. “Should you ask Chuck Daly if he was grateful that he received to teach aggressive legends like Michael Jordan, Larry Chook, and Magic Johnson all taking part in for a similar workforce [that would be the Olympic “Dream Team” of 1992], I believe the reply can be an emphatic ‘sure!’” His finest present proof is the Memento Mori 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon ($225, sourced from 5 vineyards), through which lush blackberry liqueur swirls with hints of florals, mocha, unique spice and crushed rock in opposition to a chic ripe tannin construction.

When Bart and Daphne Araujo bought the above-mentioned Eisele Winery in 2013 and, with the following technology, Jaime and Greg Araujo, launched a brand new flagship wine—Accendo (nonetheless working with Peschon and including winemaker Nigel Kinsman to the workforce)—they ditched the single-vineyard mannequin. As Bart Araujo explains, they’d tasted many elderly Napa Valley reds, blended from nice sources all through the area, and had been impressed with their freshness, their deliciousness after they had been younger, and their skill to age for a really very long time.

“You may make distinctive wines from single vineyards,” he says, “however they’re even higher collectively”—with the caveat that the vineyards should be appropriate, with soils which can be “cousins,” as he places it. Blended from Sleeping Girl, Vine Hill Ranch, and Ecotone Vineyards, in addition to Diamond Mountain, the 2018 Accendo (100 factors from Vinous) is highly effective however plush, savory notes layered with ripe plum and black raspberry for excellent steadiness.

However What About Terroir?

However, however, however … in co-mingling fruit from separate vineyards, even AVAs, don’t you lose a way of place? That idea of terroir that has been elevated as winemakers pull again on character-crushing ripeness and give attention to accentuating the distinctive flavors of particular person blocks of land? These vintners don’t see it that manner. Carpenter maintains that if a winery is farmed to coax out its best expression within the fruit, that wine will deliver its finest self to the mix, including its voice to the terroir of the broader area. His job, he says, is to know the particular profile that defines a winery, and protect it. The wine is about place—and classic—whether or not it’s vineyard-designated or a mix of a number of websites.

Having loved all these wines in an embarrassingly brief stretch of time, I can report that they’re very completely different from each other. These winemakers aren’t mixing towards a standard denominator–as a substitute, they’re skillfully combining fruit from nice websites, expressing distinctive and scrumptious cross sections of Napa Valley.