Everyone living or working in Napa Valley at the time remembers the 2014 harvest season well. Not necessarily for the quality of the wines, but for the earthquake that struck south Napa County at 3:20 a.m. on Aug. 24, wreaking havoc in some wine cellars and rattling vineyard trellises just as the crush was underway.
Now, 10 years later, I had a good look at the quality and maturity of the cabernet sauvignons from that vintage through a retrospective tasting of 45 wines. And at least one winemaker thinks the 6.0 Richter scale quake may have played a role in how they taste.
Rebekah Wineburg of Quintessa winery remembers 2014 as a drought year, but not troubled by extreme weather, either hot, cold or wet. “I remember waiting for the heat wave that often comes in late summer, but it didn’t come,” said the winemaker who was already working in Napa Valley and joined Quintessa the following year. “Instead, we had the earthquake.”