NAPA VALLEY CABS SHINE IN 2021: Apex Vintage in a ‘Redemption’ Year

Cabernet sauvignon drinkers and collectors who haven’t yet taken a position on Napa Valley’s 2021s should get busy and commit. It’s a vintage of very high quality and small quantity, with concentrated flavors, ample fine-grained tannins and great overall balance that will help it age well.

That’s the crux of what James Suckling and Executive Editor Jim Gordon learned while tasting 919 cabernet sauvignons, Bordeaux-style red blends, merlots and cabernet francs over the past seven months. A large majority of the wines are packed with dark fruits, floral and savory notes, and wrapped in snug structures of tight-knit tannins. They are powerful but refined, generous in flavors, fresh with acidity and worthy of investment.

Coming on the heels of the smoky 2020 vintage that scarred many, but hardly all, of that year’s Napa cabernets, 2021 is the “redemption” vintage, according to Aaron Pott, a winemaker for Seven Stones and his own Pott label and a consultant for several top wineries around the globe. He and dozens of other winemakers we spoke with emphasized the unique grape-growing conditions in 2021, which resulted in a crop that delivered everything they wanted – and a bit more.

The 2021 cabernet sauvignon harvest was small, due to uneven flowering in the spring and the extreme drought conditions that conspired to reduce grape bunch size and berry size. This resulted in unusually small berries with thick skins, which is good for quality because the skins are where red wines get their color and tannins. Numerous winemakers said they had to go light on extraction maneuvers like punchdowns and pumpovers during fermentation to keep the tannins from building out of control.

“Have you ever seen Spinal Tap?” Chris Cooney, the winemaker for Dana Estates, asked James when he tasted their 2021s. “It’s like going to 11. Everything is intense. This is what’s so special about 2021. It’s not just fruit flavor that is here.”

Nine 2021s earned the ultimate 100-point accolade: those from Colgin, Futo, Grace Family, Harlan, Lokoya, Promontory, Schrader, Screaming Eagle and Tor. Our tasting notes for these wines are peppered with superlatives like “masterpiece,” “perfect,” “gorgeous,” “enticing,” “insane” and “benchmark.” That’s less than 1 percent of the wines we tasted. For perspective, the 2020 vintage had no Napa cabernets in the 98 to 100 point range, and only three perfect scores were awarded to the 2019s, although the vintage is very appealing, nicely rich, rounded and supple.

These are not inexpensive wines, but if you're buying them you're getting superb quality. Napa, like many wine regions around the world, has seen a significant upward swing in prices given the inflationary economy, supply chain issues and extreme weather, but it has also experienced a drop in tourist numbers of about 25 percent as well as fewer tasting room visits.

If you are able to visit and taste through the 2021 vintage, there are plenty of can't-miss bottles. One is the perfect-scoring Grace Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley St. Helena Cornelius Grove 2021, which comes from amazing old vines of up to 70 years old, planted at low density in hillsides on the west side of St. Helena. James said he had a feeling of "forgottenness" when he walked through the magnificent vineyards – which are part of the Heath Canyon Ranch farmed by the Corbett Family since the early 1900s.

The vineyard is now owned by the Green family, who reside in Paris, while the winemaking is overseen by Helen Keplinger. It's just the second release of the Cornelius Grove, a wine redolent of graphite, grilled seaweed, black currants and peaches on a muscular body that is destined to age wonderfully.

Another of our 100-pointers is the Colgin Cellars Napa Valley Cariad 2021, which comes from the St. Helena appellation and David Abreu’s Madrona Vineyard. This one is a masterpiece that may outlive us all, with black currants, black olives, dried violets and iodine on a cashmere-like texture.

James said the aromatic and perfumed Harlan Estate Napa Valley 2021 reminded him of Chanel No. 5. It’s laced with superfine tannins and has a finish that lasts minutes, and will age beautifully. The Futo Napa Valley Oakville 2021 is plush in powdery tannins and feels open while floating on the palate. It's full yet feathery and light. And reminiscent of the 1975 La Mission Haut Brion, the Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Mount Veeder 2021 offers stone, iodine and purple fruits with plush and chewy tannins that give great tension and length.

You can check out the tasting notes for the 100-pointers and all of the other wines we rated below, but just how good was the vintage in general? Simply put, it could turn out to be the best year since 2013.

The wines are big, deep and concentrated, balanced with acidity and firm in very fine-grained tannins in the best examples. It’s an age-worthy vintage that will bring out more and more complexities with time – similar in some ways to 2018 and destined for more greatness than 2019 and 2020.

2021 is a better vintage than we expect 2022 to be. Winemakers were tied in knots by the challenge of a record-setting heat dome with temperatures reaching 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.1 Celsius) in a critical period near harvest. We’ve already noticed several examples of 2022s that are ripe and full-bodied but lack some of the color and concentration we had hoped for.

Bordeaux-based winemaker Michel Rolland, who consults with dozens of California wineries, said he thinks 2021 will age longer than 2019 and 2018, but not as long as 2013, which he called a “great” vintage. “We have to wait on it still,” he said of 2013. “It’s so strong. It was a blockbuster year and is now beginning to develop a little. 2021 is the same but with a little less tannin and concentration.”

Pahlmeyer’s Katie Vogt, who has been making wine since 2008, said the 2021s “are blowing my mind.”

“How they evolved already is a glimpse into where they are headed,” she said. “The ageability factor is huge. Everything is volume up: intensity, tannin and acidity. People who managed that power and found the right balance between all those things, they tamed the beast of 2021, made one of the more remarkable vintages I’ve seen.”

A LITTLE RAIN GOES A LONG WAY

Winemaker Todd Mostero at Dominus Estate delved into some details about the 2021 growing season, which was not marred by drastic heat spikes or long-lasting heat domes. But his vines in Yountville started with only 14 inches of rainfall from the usually wet, winter season, compared with a long-term average of 31.5 inches, Mostero said.

He described the temperatures as being higher than normal but with no big, late-season extremes. Small berries resulted in high phenolics, giving 2021 a tight, compact character. He said 2013 and 2018 were the other recent great vintages where no extreme heat spikes occurred.

Weather data from Oakville, in mid-Napa Valley, show only nine heat events in the 2021 growing season when temperatures hit over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of these events only lasted one to three days, however, and, most important, the temps reached 100 degrees or higher only twice.

At Opus One in Oakville, Michael Silacci and his team made an elegant, polished Opus One Napa Valley 2021. Their vines on the Opus property and across Highway 29 at To Kalon Vineyard saw the smallest amount of precipitation in history to begin 2021. He described how a sudden, cool, rainy spell  occurred during the bloom period in spring that impeded pollination. That caused the poor fruit set and consequently small harvest.

Opus One started the 2021 harvest on Aug. 31 and finished Sept. 24. With alcohol below 14 percent and markedly fresh fruit character, the resulting wine shows a calm intensity and subtle layering. Silacci said 2021 and 2018 were close in style, even if they came from quite different vintage conditions.

The intensity is not just in flavors. At Robert Mondavi Winery, according to winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara, the vintage “concentrated the acidity very nicely.” He said the Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Oakville To Kalon Vineyard The Reserve 2021 has a pH of 3.74, considerably lower (and thus crisper) than some monster-style cabs, and 6.8 grams per liter acidity – also fresher than average.

Ogasawara said he thinks 2021 has a little more finesse than 2013 or 2018, both of which had power and muscle similar to 2021.

While some winemakers said the vintage was hectic since many grape varietals ripened at nearly the same time, the winemaker for Textbook, Abigail Estrada, said it was her easiest vintage since 2014. “The goal is to intervene minimally and a vintage like that is magic,” she said. “The wines naturally have a strong structure and beautiful tannins that aren’t overpowering.”

READ MORE OREGON ANNUAL REPORT: A PAYBACK VINTAGE AND PINOTS THAT STOP TIME

As for varietally labeled merlots in this report, the Pahlmeyer Merlot Napa Valley 2021 earned the highest score, 98 points, out of 52 wines. For cabernet francs, the Amici Cabernet Franc Napa Valley Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard 2021 took top honors with 97 points.

Our advice is to read over our extensive reviews, identify the 2021 wines that most appeal to you, then buy them by the case if you can. Open and drink at least one bottle in the next year so you have a benchmark, then try to save most of the other bottles for five, 10 or even 20 years to see how much they improve, evolve and gain mystery with time.

In the meantime, buy 2019 Napa Valley cabernets for earlier drinking, because they’re so plush, supple and delicious right now. We advise being cautious about the 2022s until more have been reviewed. Great winemakers know how to coax the best out of difficult vintages so we’re sure there will be some good drinking among the 2022s, but we suspect that the average quality will not be as stellar as 2021.

– Jim Gordon, Executive Editor

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