The Harsh Truth about Napa Valley Wines
The Big Guns are coming to California wine country. The result is a mixed bag.
It’s the vibrancy and singularity of wine that I love. It’s got a living, breathing spirit, always different, always changing. There’s a magic to it. And it’s at risk in wines from Napa Valley, California.
The story of Napa has always been that local growers and makers are the heart, the soul, the spirit of the place.
They work at mastering the art and craft of wine-making. Every year (a.k.a. every vintage) is different because every year the weather is different. The sun shines more or less. The rain falls. Or doesn’t. There is more or less wind and humidity. The people who tend the grapes do a better or not as good job in trimming the leaves (known as the canopy in wine-speak). There are just so many variables in the growing of the grapes that result in that elusive taste of terroir (wine-speak for earth).
Let’s talk tough about wine.
And now that spirit – and the wine itself - is changing.
Corporations and big private equity are buying up the land, the grapes and the wineries. Their goal is to increase the efficiency, consistency and dependability of growing grapes and making wine. They want to turn a bottle of wine into a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup: a shelf-stable, always-the-same product.
That can be good or bad, according to your perspective and tastes. But I figure whichever side of that coin you might be on, you want to know what’s happening.
Meet Adam Fox, Managing Director of Canard Vineyards.
On a recent trip to Napa, some friends and I had a wine tasting and talk with the brilliant and insightful Adam Fox.
Adam’s message to us was this: grapes matter. And growing grapes is very hard work that requires year-round effort, technical skills, constancy, commitment, and a little luck. In other words:
“If you take care of the grapes, the grapes take care of you.” (Canard’s motto)
It’s a year-round project to manage a vineyard. Growing grapes is fundamentally different than vegetable farming. According to Adam:
“If you grow vegetables, you can turn over the vegetables 2 or 3 times in a season. With grapes, it’s one crop per year. That’s it. And you’re dependent on the weather and the soil to make that crop great.”
At Canard, they dry-farm grapes, just like they do in France. That means, no irrigation. They use the sun, the rain and the mist to nourish the grapes. This technique stresses the roots and makes them grow longer and stronger. In the end, it’s that stress that gives each year’s grapes their own character.
The grape canapy (i.e., the leaves) need constant support. For example, grapes want more shade when it’s hot; they want to feel the wind and are dependent on those winds to transport the seeds.
Growers strive for the perfect grape, picked at the height of ripeness. Picking a grape too early or too late affects the wine made from those grapes.
Helpful Hint: 2023 was the perfect year weather-wise in Napa. The growing season was long, giving the grapes a little extra time on the vine. These wines will be out in 2025. If you find a 2023 red from Napa, grab it. It will probably be great!
“But the times - they are a’changing.”
Adam believes there’s a massive generational change happening in Napa. The old-time growers and winemakers are selling their land and businesses to big conglomerates and private equity owners. These new owners are taking short-cuts to squeeze out as much wine – and profit – as possible.
They start by reverse-engineering wine. They use focus groups to figure out what people want their wine to taste like, look like, smell like, feel like. Then they work hard to create wine to match those preferences. They manipulate the wine so that every single bottle, every single year, tastes exactly the same.
How do they do that? They use additives with weird names like gum arabic, activated carbon, ammonium phosphate, alumino-silicates, ascorbic acid, citric acid, copper sulfate, polyoxythylene 40, dimethyl dicarbonate, carbohydrase to manipulate the wine.
My personal favorite additive name is Mega Purple, a Barney-gone-amuck sounding additive made from the highly sugared teinturier grape. Teinturier grapes are very very purple, inside and out. A tiny drop can change a light colored red to a darker purple red and can also round out the taste.
With Mega Purple, winemakers can make sure the wine looks and tastes the same, year after year.
For more insight into the changes in Napa, take a look at Tim Carl’s article in “Napa Valley Feature”s:
As a buyer/drinker, how do you know what you are getting?
Well, it’s hard to know, because the regulations for labeling what’s in the wine is virtually non-existent in the United States.
The bottom line, of course, is that you want to end up with a wine you love. Only you know what your taste experience is like. If you love that $8 bottle of vine from Trader Joe’s, then go for it. It will be consistent for you, all the time.
But if you want something that’s a little more natural, a little more authentic, a little more the result of the soil and the sun and the rain, look for estate grown and bottled wine. Here is a hint: look at where it’s from. You are looking for specificity here. If the label says “estate grown and bottled”, it is generally a higher quality wine. If you are at Total Wine, shopping for a California Chardonnay, you might find any of these labels:
A California Chardonnay
A North Coast Chardonnay
A Sonoma Chardonnay
A Russian River Chardonnay
An estate-grown wine from the Russion River Valley
In general, the estate-grown wine will probably have the most character.
A final word on the tastes of Canard.
For me, the Canard wines were mind-blowing. Expensive. But mind-blowing. Probably some of the best wines I every had. We tried:
A reserve Zinfandel. They produce 150 cases/year of their reserve Zinfandel. The grapes come from a 140 year old vineyard that was planted by the original owners, an Italian immigrant family.
A reserve Cab. 100% cabernet grapes from one block of land.
A very special wine they call Alluvia. It is also 100% cab. It comes from literally 3 rows of grapes that are grown in alluvial soil, a very fertile soil formed where river water glides over land and deposits organic matter and sediment. The wine then spends 2 years in a barrel and 3 in a bottle. Alluvia pushes the cabernet experience to the edge of its cabbiness! (I actually wrote that in my tasting notes!).
If you are a wine fanatic and interested in wines from Canard, contact one of these men. They would be delighted to ship you some:
Adam Fox
Canard Vineyards
1016 Dunaweal Lane
Calistoga CA 94515
Jerry Finnegan
Beaver Brook Bottles
86 Trapelo Road
Waltham MA 02452
781-609-2576
Jerry is a Boston-area wine enthusiast and store owner with a tremendous following. But no web-site. Go figure.
Cheers!
Great post! I have created a new "wine" folder and stored this for reference!