Napa Valley This Week

The grape berries are just beginning to form in Napa Valley this week..

We drove up Highway 129 into the stillness of a long Sunday afternoon in Napa Valley this week, just to see how things are coming along. Everywhere we went, we passed rows and rows of white cones about six inches high that protect new plantings.

It only took a handful of days to destroy large chunks of vineyards during last year’s wildfires, only a handful of hours for some, but it will be four or five years, say 2027, before these vines produce anything like commercial yields again.

Bankers toss uneasily in the moonlight wondering why they didn’t invest in soybeans instead. Bankers control the wine industry in Napa, and you can see their invisible hands everywhere if you know how to look.

All of these new plantings, for instance. That new pond off to the right is what farmers call a tank—a place to hold rainwater during the winter until they need it in late summer.

But, there’s been no rain this year either and the water may not last the whole year.

And, who knows what fires may come slithering down the hills in the nights between now and 2027? Or, how much water will be available to fight them when they do?

Those little vines look more like ivy than grape vines— all you can see is their heads peeking up over the edge of the cones. They are here to fill the barren spaces left by last year’s wildfires.

Vines have no memory, which is just as well or they’d be tossing as uneasily as the bankers.

New plantings are everywhere trying to reclaim the land from the wild fires.

It’s a week of new growth everywhere and slow breezes and big floppy hats, if you’re out in the vineyards—people get sunburned as easily as vines do and with the same results.

Tomorrow the crews will come, with their tractors and knives, the bees will fill the fields and salesmen will swarm through the valley repeating words like “tannins,” “full bodied” and “flabby” like the lyrics of an old song.

But, today it is still.

The new grapes are invisible from the highway. But, if you get out of the car and get up close enough you’ll find that the berries are just beginning to form on the vines.

You can’t even see them from the roads that cut across the valley from one side to the other. You have to get up close and personal with the vines and lift up the leaves to find the treasure growing underneath.

These baby grape clusters are starting a surge in growth that follows the end of the flowering a month or so ago. The long arching canopies of August are just promises now. The clear blue sky is empty of birds. Water waits in the wells.

Summer will bring temperatures in the 90’s, maybe over 100, but for now it’s 74 degrees with just the echo of a breeze and a clear blue sky.

Oak Knoll

The highway has been moved around the city of Napa since the first time I came here. You used to have to drive over the railroad tracks on the west side of town to get up valley but now you’ll miss the town entirely unless you deliberately choose to turn off the highway.

But, today we keep going, until we’ve passed all five Napa exits, past the restaurants and the gas station, and then make the right turn onto Oak Knoll road. The first turn you come to on Oak Knoll from this direction is flanked on both sides with trees that dapple the entrance to Trefethen Vineyards.

At a competition between American and French wines held in Beaune, France in 1979, French judges awarded Trefethen Chardonnay the gold over competing world famous Burgundian chardonnays (which are named by place rather than grape).

“We spent a lot of time resisting pressure to turn the wine into a bigger, riper, more malo wine. All that stuff that the New World went through, that California went through, that Australia went through.” —John Trefethen, https://grapecollective.com/articles/trefethens-30-guest-worthy-chardonnay-and-a-mystery-solved

Bigger and riper are code words for more sugar which means more alcohol. We talked about the aromas and textures produced by malolactic fermentation last week right here in this very newsletter.

He’s talking about the New World because the Old World couldn’t get the grapes ripe enough but in the New World, the grapes are too ripe. The alcohol tends to get too high and can wreck the balance of fruit, acid and tannins.

To get the tight knit quality and silkiness of Trefethen Chardonnay is unusual for climates as warm as Napa. Generally, the valley favors cabernet and other red wine grapes. The whites tend to have come from south of here, down in Carneros.

Silverado Trail

We drive past Trefethen, passing some great vineyards along the way, until Oak Knoll dead ends into Silverado Trail, which runs the entire length of the Valley on the Eastern side.

Turn north there and you drive into the Stags Leap AVA—arguably the best in the world for Cabernet. And, there will be a lot of arguments about that. But, if you’re looking for the best, this is a good place to start.

First, there is Clos du Val (see photo below), where Bernard Portet, son of the technical director at Chateau Lafite in Bordeaux, was the founding winemaker in 1971 and worked for forty years definingBordeaux style red wines grown in California.

Then, Chimney Rock, Recusi and the maybe the ultimate—Stags Leap Cellars. Not to be confused with Stags Leap Winery which is, I suppose, confusing no matter what you do.

Stags Leap and Clos du Val both competed in the Judgement of Paris in 1976 where Stag’s Leap won the top prize over the likes of Chateau Mouton and Chateau Haut Brion—considered by many to be among the top two or three wines in the world.

The Stillness of the Vines

The Valley is all promise this week.

There is greatness under the earth here, but who knows if it will bear fruit or if we will ever taste it? Spiritual traditions from here say the spirit of the vines has the same spirit as we do— only they can’t talk, or kill or hate.

You have to be an advanced species to do those things.

But, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to sit down with the vines for a few minutes and share their spirit. Talking to a vine is no worse than talking to most of the people I know.

Much better than talking to a banker.

And, unlike talking with most of the people I know, when you get up to leave, you’ll feel much better than when you sat down.

Maybe one day the tractors will all break down and the earth will just say no.

But, not today. Today the valley is still.

I will tell you the truth—all the nonsense of life can be resolved just by sitting down and not moving for 15 minutes. The vines do it all the time.

I, on the other hand, have been arrested twice for sitting too still in Texas.

Texas may not understand me but these vines know I’m right.

They couldn’t move if they wanted to.

But, they don’t want to. There is no need.

The stillness of the valley is enough.