2016: Napa’s Fifth Consecutive Outstanding Vintage
Nick Stock and James Suckling taste at Ulysses with winemaker Tod Mostero.
Napa Valley is releasing another outstanding vintage for reds with the 2016, making it the fifth top year in a row for the Sunshine State. After tasting almost 500 wines from the year, we believe that 2016 compares beautifully in quality to the other excellent vintages such as 2012, 2014, and 2015, although the 2013 remains the best of the five vintages.
Senior Editor Nick Stock and I also tasted more reds from the 2015 vintage and we continue to be impressed with the quality of the year as it produced fruity, flavorful and relatively balanced wines with good ripe tannins, despite the problems with a small crop and hot and early growing season. The wines are very delicious to drink young but they have surprising structure for aging.
“We have a theory that some winemakers picked very late simply because they could so they did, to make behemoth wines.”
For us, the quality of the wines in both vintages seems to be heavily influenced by those who made them. A good number of wines were overdone with sultana and dried fruit character where wineries obviously intentionally picked as late as possible. We have to wonder who drinks these wines anymore (but there is still demand in the market). On the other hand, some wineries obviously worked very hard to pick at the right times and finesse their winemaking to emphasize the goodness of their vineyard and the vintage, regardless if it was the 2015 or the 2016. A good example of this were the wines from Tod Mostero who made wonderful reds at Dominus and Ulysses in both 2016 and 2015. The 2016 Ulysses is the best ever — 99 points. “We simply try to do the right things at the right time whether in the vineyard or the winery,” says Mostero.
Realm Cellars 2016 wines show top quality.
Realm Cellars is another winery that is pushing the limits for quality and, despite its wines showing Napa richness, there’s a purity and precision to the wines that underline deft winemaking. “We could pick anytime we wanted in 2016,” admits winemaker Benoit Touquette. “But this was a vintage that you could really show the true character of the wines — so you needed to pick at the right time.”
Indeed, the growing season of 2016 was a beautiful one with hot and dry weather but no extremes or heat spikes in the summer that often mark vintages and leave a fingerprint on wines. We have a theory that some winemakers picked very late simply because they could so they did, to make behemoth wines. Others dialed in their terroirs by quality picking the grapes at the right time and fine-tuning their winemaking to emphasize the goodness and character of their vineyards.
“It’s a bummer when people missed the opportunity to make vineyard-and area-specific wines in an excellent year like 2016,” adds Touquette.
We agree wholeheartedly. But so many wineries DID make outstanding quality 2016s and we have only just begun tasting them. We look forward to the next round of tastings in February in Napa Valley. — James Suckling, Editor and CEO