Napa’s Mountain Magic and a Closer Look at Silvaner: Weekly Tasting Report

The JamesSuckling.com team rated 386 wines in its penultimate tasting week of 2024, with Jim Gordon wrapping up his annual tastings in California, Senior Editor Stuart Pigott delving into a special vertical of German silvaner wines and Associate Editor Ryan Montgomery climbing into the Macedon Ranges in Australia.

The California portion of this week’s report ranges from chenin blanc to zinfandel, and includes an usually high percentage of highly rated bottles, with 18 wines earning scores of 96 or above from Jim. All but four of those are Napa Valley reds grown and vinified under the direction of Chris Carpenter, a veteran viticulturist and winemaker for Jackson Family Wines.

Carpenter is in charge of Jackson’s 1,200 acres of vineyards in Napa Valley and the wines made from them, which include Lokoya, Cardinale, La Jota, Mt. Brave and Caladan. All but the Cardinale wines are grown primarily in mountain districts of Napa, which Carpenter can point to from his perch at Cardinale Winery on a knob that thrusts up from the valley floor in the Oakville district.

The top-scoring Jackson wine that that Jim tasted with Carpenter, by a whisker, was the Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Mount Veeder 2022, a majestic wine with the intensity and tannin of a Pauillac.

Highlighting other mountain terroirs with a shade less-intense tannin and their own distinctive characters are the rich, opulent Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Howell Mountain 2022, the muscular but elegant Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Spring Mountain District 2022 and the Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Diamond Mountain District 2022, with its pure and saturated creme de cassis signature.

While Lokoya makes AVA-designated wines from four different mountains, La Jota comes only from two estate vineyards on Howell Mountain. The most impressive was La Jota Vineyard Co. Merlot Napa Valley Howell Mountain W. S. Keyes Vineyard 2022, which is pure, delicious and well-balanced, and a good reason to revisit merlot!

The top-scoring white this week also comes from La Jota.  The Chardonnay Napa Valley Howell Mountain W. S. Keyes Vineyard 2022 takes advantage of one of the last plots of chardonnay on Howell Mountain. Carpenter saved these vines while much of the district was re-planting to cabernet sauvignon. They make a structured, linear, non-malolactic version that’s more Chablis than Meursault.

An equally amazing chardonnay comes from Calera, whose whole current lineup Jim tasted with winemaker Mike Waller. It gives salt and pepper aromas, chalk and saline elements along with great richness and depth.

The pioneering estate in San Benito County produces distinctive pinot noir, primarily from the calcareous soil that is rare in California and helps preserve more vivid acidity and spine than most Golden State pinot regions. The Calera Pinot Noir Mt. Harlan Jensen Vineyard 2021 was the standout, so harmonious, structured and elegant.

There’s much more to check out in the California section, too, Including the Goldeneye lineup from Anderson Valley and our first look in a few years at some outstanding Benziger wines from Sonoma County.

EXPLORING SILVANER

It’s a complete myth that riesling was the most widely planted grape variety in Germany a century ago. The truth is that the silvaner grape and field blends based on silvaner were dominant. This fact, and the slow-motion renaissance of this grape variety in the German regions of Franken and Rheinhessen (plus Alto Adige in Italy) over the last decade persuaded Senior Editor Stuart Pigott that the aging potential of these wines deserved to be explored.

Building on wines from his own cellar with the help of leading producers, he assembled a silvaner vertical tasting beginning with 2018 and going back to 1967. Some may wonder how the bone-dry wines from a white grape commonly described today as "humble,” "rustic“ or "earthy“ could actually gain in interest with bottle age, but Stuart’s conclusion was that none of those descriptors fit the best silvaners of modern times and they can indeed age extremely well.

2017 is not a vintage that is widely praised in Germany, largely because the wines are well-structured but lacked charm in their youth. The pair of stunning 2017 silvaners from Rudi May of Retzstadt in Franken show just how well these wines can age, still tasting very fresh at seven years old. Under screw caps they should be good for at least another decade.

Stuart’s only problem was trying to decide if he preferred the concentrated yellow fruit aromas of the May Silvaner Franken Himmelspfad GG 2017 with a cornucopia of garden-herb, citrus and wildflower aromas or the intensely mineral character of the May Silvaner Franken Rothlauf GG 2017 with its haunting white tea and wild herb aromas.

There was another amazing pair of wines from Uli Luckert of Sulzfeld in Franken. The Luckert Silvaner Franken Creutz Trocken *** 2016 shines with its great chalky minerality and amazing tension while the Luckert Silvaner Franken Creutz Trocken *** 2017 has amazing leesy creaminess that is lit up by the mineral freshness. The Creutz is a parcel of roughly 120-year-old vines and is almost certainly the oldest silvaner vineyard in the world.

Another astonishing wine was the Stahl Silvaner Franken Fass 500 GSKR 2015, which you could easily mistake for a great mature white Burgundy because of its profound chalky character intertwined with a very sensual creaminess. Today, Christian Stahl of Auernhofen is also well known for being the only winemaker in Germany (or the world?) to also have a Michelin star in his own restaurant.

The oldest wine of the tasting, the Bürgerspital Silvaner Franken Stein-Harfe Spätlese 1967, also greatly impressed with amazing textural complexity and floral honey character for more than half a century of age. Like the other exciting wines in the tasting, it has modest acidity, so this is clearly no impediment to long aging.

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN VICTORIA

The Macedon Ranges in Central Victoria is one of Australia’s premier cool-climate wine regions, renowned for its exceptional pinot noir and chardonnay from boutique, family-run wineries and  elevated vineyards at altitudes of 300 to 800 meters.

Michael Dhillon of Bindi Wines crafts exquisite expressions of terroir-driven pinot noir and chardonnay from his family estate, which was first planted in 1988. His meticulous vineyard practices and restrained winemaking result in purity, finesse and precision.

Associate Editor Ryan Montgomery tasted the current releases with Dhillon, and found the Bindi Chardonnay Macedon Ranges Quartz 2023 to be extremely polished and tightly wound, with an underlying power and tension that should age magnificently. Dhillon’s fine touch is also reflected in his range of pinot noirs, with the Bindi Pinot Noir Macedon Ranges Block 5 2022 offering intensely perfumed aromas. The palate presents a medium body with seamless tannins and bright acidity, delivering an ultra-refined, polished, almost perfectly balanced finish.

Another diverse and lesser-known region celebrated for its diversity is Gippsland. Located in southeastern Victoria, approximately 100 kilometers from Melbourne’s city center, Gippsland boasts cool-climate conditions ideal for pinot noir and chardonnay due to coastal influence and varied terroirs.

Gippsland is home to one of Australia’s most celebrated pinot noir producers: Bass Phillip Wines, which was founded in 1979 by Phillip Jones. From the very beginning, Jones adopted organic and biodynamic practices, emphasizing natural vineyard expression and minimal intervention in winemaking. This legacy continues today after the estate was acquired in 2020 by the Burgundian house Jean-Marie Fourrier, with Bass Phillip continuing to be focused on minimal intervention winemaking and terroir-driven wines.

The classic, ethereal Bass Phillip style was on full display when tasting the Bass Phillip Pinot Noir Gippsland Reserve 2022, which is deeply perfumed and lifted, with aromas of wild blackberries, boysenberry, dark cherry, spice, wet bark and citrus peel. The palate is medium-bodied, with seamless tannins and focused acidity alongside a creamy texture.

Although Bass Philip is traditionally a pinot noir house, as is Jean-Marie Fourrier in Gevrey Chambertin, the climate and individual sites interact wonderfully well with chardonnay, too. The Bass Phillip Chardonnay Gippsland Premium 2022 showcases the potential of chardonnay in this climate. It's Burgundian-styled chardonnay that is pure and refined with complex aromas of confit lemon peel, lemon, hazelnut, flint and lanolin. The palate is complex, carrying an exceptional balance with an underlying tension that yields a seamless finish.

– Jim Gordon, Stuart Pigott and Ryan Montgomery contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

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