Tasting the Traumatic 2017 Vintage (and Others) in Northern California
The vineyards at Joseph Phelps stretch to the Napa horizon.
Some people are not going to like wines in 2017 from Northern California, particularly reds from Napa Valley. If you prefer full-bodied, fruit driven wines with lots of ripeness, high alcohol, and sweet tannins you will probably be unhappy with many bottles. But there are still some worth buying and drinking, particularly if you like more balanced and fresh wines like I do. I found numerous 2017 reds that I think are excellent quality despite the troublesome hot weather during the growing season and the devastating fires in October.
I tasted about 1,100 wines from Northern California over the last five months and I continue to like the 2017s, especially from Napa Valley. Many have a firmness and drinkability that is so attractive and intriguing. The reds show an almost European character, focused on expressing their provenance and vintage, rather than a stylized personality that emphasises fruit concentration and tannin power. Those were features that were once identified with the best wines from the region, but times are changing. The 2017 whites are quite opulent but also show tension. Most were tasted last year.
The many 2016s also rated for this report are much more classic in nature and show the more balanced grape growing season of the vintage. As I have noted in other reports, the reds from all areas and just about every grape show wonderful structure, depth and harmony. The 2018 vintage also promises excellence but perhaps with slightly more richness and intensity. Those are rated with barrel scores of two-point ranges. But it’s the best 2017s that will surprise most people for better or for worse.
I did find one perfect wine in all the 2017s. It was the Abreu Napa Valley Las Posadas 2017. The superlative balance and depth of fruit and ultra-fine tannins were so enchanting. My other top 2017s included four 99-pointers: Bryant Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, Dana Estates Napa Valley Rutherford Helms Vineyard, Schrader Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard Colesworthy, and Tor Napa Valley Black Magic 2017. I also retasted the Promontory Napa Valley 2016 and gave it 100 points. This a wine that is so current, with its solid mouthfeel, complexity and sophistication. Yet it also feels historical and real and gives a nod to the great Napa reds of the 1950s. Check out the new first release of To Kolan Vineyard Co. Napa Valley Oakville Highest Beauty 2016, a fantastic wine from the esteemed enologist Andy Erickson, who was given free reign over the best vineyards of Constellation’s To Kolan vineyards to make a world class wine. His debut wine is a stunner.
Read more: TOP 100 WINES OF THE USA 2019
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- Pym-Rae’s Alfred Tesseron acquired the estate from the late Robin Williams.
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- James tastes with Cathy Corison, who declared the 2017 heat spike “the most unique” she had ever experienced.
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- Winemaker Andy Erickson shows off his new star cabernet from To Kalon.
2017 Napa vintage: Balanced and fresh
“The baby fat is not there in the 2017 so it made wine more European with more restrained and complex reds,” said Benoit Touquette, the French winemaker of Napa Valley’s Realm Cellars. “You talk about fire and heat but then you have a super fresh wine. It’s kind of weird.”
Indeed, I expected to taste many overripe and over-made wines with “2017” on their labels; yet so many were balanced, fresh and refined, especially the Napa wines that comprised the majority of my tasting. Many seemed a little like well-made 2011s even though the vintage was the complete opposite of 2017. The 2011 suffered from cold and wet weather while 2017 was complicated with dry, hot conditions.
“People talk about fires in 2017 but we finished picking before the fires,” said Tod Mostero, head winemaker at Dominus and Ulysses who made lovely and fresh reds. “It was the big heat spike over Labor Day that hurt us. The vines shut down.”
Most of the dozens of winemakers I spoke to during my various tasting trips cite this Labor Day heat spike as one of the biggest factors defining the vintage as well as the character of the wines. This was true in both Napa and Sonoma. (Please see our most recent report on Sonoma on the link below) Many of the vineyards in 2017 shut down. It was the same as during a cool and wet period in a humid growing season but 2018 was boiling hot. Grapes lost sugar or ripeness and for some, the ripeness never returned. Many winemakers decided to pick instead of waiting and made fresher and slightly less alcoholic wines as a result.
“2017 was very unique,” said veteran winemaker Cathy Corison of Corison Vineyards. “It reminds me of 2002, which was fruit driven. 2017 was the most unique heat spike I have ever seen in my career (of 42 years).”
Read more: SONOMA’S REFRESHING DIVERSITY: 450+ WINES TASTED
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- The Screaming Eagle team of winemaker Nick Gislason and general manager Armand de Maigret welcome James.
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- This cold Napa morning is a world away from the blazing heat of 2017.
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- Continuum’s Tim Mondavi and his daughters Carissa and Chiara present their latest release.
California’s 2017 fire and the smoke taint effect
For three days over Labor Day weekend temperatures hit 105 Fahrenheit and in some areas it reached as high as 110. It sent some vines into cardiac arrest. This exaggerated dryness and heat seat up the conditions for the October fires of 2017. Some top winemakers couldn’t get their entire crops picked before the fires began and had to pick or leave their grapes on the ground with smoke in the air. Screaming Eagle, the legend of Napa, had only just begun the harvest when the fire began on the night of October 8. Yet they still made two of the best wines of the vintage. However, they only made the equivalent of a few hundred cases and declassified the rest.
“It was on track to be a really pretty vintage,” said Nick Gislason, winemaker at Screaming Eagle. “The merlot was all in and we were just starting on cabernet sauvignon. Monday was going to be a big pick day and then it changed with the fire.”
I was in Napa during a large part of the fire and it was dreadful. It was incredibly smoky and hard to breath. Besides the poor air quality, there were power cuts. Wineries who didn’t have generators could do very little in the winery regarding temperature control or pumping over fermenting vats. Some winemakers were locked out of their wineries, while others snuck in to make the wines already in the tanks or vats.
It really was only by the grace of God, combined with incredibly talented winemakers, that some beautiful wines were produced in 2017. I honestly had much lower expectations for the 2017 vintage in Northern California and especially Napa and Sonoma but so many of the wines are gorgeous.
“It’s a challenging vintage because of the psychology of it as well as what happened but we made some excellent wines in 2017,” said Paul Hobbs, the veteran winemaker. “We hope people taste and drink them!”
Most top winemakers were diligent in eliminating any smoke tainted or flawed wines from their bottlings that were made from grapes picked during or after the fires. They just didn’t want to risk it. Many admitted that they tested and tasted multiple times, but just couldn’t feel comfortable with the results to use these wines. Of course, they were sold somewhere and I am afraid some of it found its way into inexpensive and early drinking blends. But I have not tasted any.
“I had to make some tough decisions with the 2017,” said Chris Carpenter, the respected winemaker of La Jota Vineyard. “I bottled nothing from the fire knowing what we know about aging and the rest. I just couldn’t do it. I was heartbroken. It was one of the great vintages leading up to the fires. We tried everything to treat it but it just was not right.”
I have tasted several smoke-tainted wines over the last two decades, especially in Australia during various wine competitions in the early 2010s, so I have become pretty good at spotting them. I was also aided by some top Australian winemakers who guided me through the process. I didn’t find many wines with taint or obvious treatments for the fault during my tastings of Northern California wines for this report. Neither did my colleague and Executive Editor Nick Stock, who has more experience than me with smoke taint, as he lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has tasted Australian wines for almost two decades.
Nonetheless, the memory of the fire and the heartbreak it caused will always be the story of the 2017 vintage. But we should also remember the excellent quality of so many wines made. I am going to happily uncork bottles in the future and toast everyone who got through the ordeal, especially the winemakers who managed to make great wines.
– James Suckling, CEO & editor