Redefining American Wines the Harlan Way, and the Legend of Sassicaia: Weekly Tasting Report (March 30-April 5)

I had dinner in Napa last week with some film producers who used to work for Disney and one of them asked me, “What is the most exciting wine country in the world at the moment?” He was surprised when I said it was the United States.

I have been in the states for about a month after spending two years in Hong Kong, where I am a permanent resident, and I have visited dozens of winemakers and wineries in Napa Valley, Paso Robles, Santa Rita Hills, Monterey, Sonoma County Russian River, West Sonoma Coast and now Oregon. And I have been amazed by the enthusiasm and passion for making great wines in these places as well as the quality of some of the best wines. America is in an amazing place at the moment in that regard.

A lot of it has to do with experience and the age of vineyards. I see so many more young people working in wineries with an incredible dedication to quality in the bottle. It’s inspiring to listen to what they say about their jobs, vineyards and wineries, as well as understanding the great energy and focus they have. It’s also interesting to see in many cases that vineyards are now 20 or 30 years of age and producing some of their best grapes ever. And it shows in the bottle.

A visit to Harlan, Bond and Promontory in Napa Valley last week with Will Harlan and his team highlighted this. Will is the son of Harlan founder Bill Harlan and runs the show now, although Bill was at the tasting at Harlan at the beginning of my visit. Some of you may question what more a winery like Harlan can do to make great wines when it’s already a cult wine and sells out each vintage for about $850 a bottle. Yet Will and his team are still pushing the envelope to make the best wine on earth, and in the process they are redefining great Napa reds and American wines in general.

I have lived through the metamorphosis of Harlan, and I can note that Harlan is now making some of the most dynamic young wines out there at the moment. It’s been a gradual evolution from opulence to energy, and the 2019 Harlan highlights this with an almost abstract personality in the bottle, with tension driven by fine tannins and bright acids. In the past it was about fruit intensity, but now it’s about structure, length and tension, which has always been the hallmark of great European wines.

“We are entering into the fourth decade and the fourth decade of anyone growing vines on this property,” Will said at the winery. “There were just trees there before. There is this learning curve that is significant, especially for what we do… We are delving deeper into what Harlan can be just with vine age.”

Check out the tasting notes below for all the wines of the Harlan-owned trilogy of Harlan Estate, Bond and Promontory.

I had a similar feeling visiting Kistler Vineyards (there’s a perfect chardonnay on our list) and DuMOL last week in Sonoma County. Many of their chardonnays and pinots were at the same quality level as the best grand crus of Burgundy, yet they had a unique character to their respective places, whether a blend or a single-vineyard wine.

They weren’t trying to do anything more than reflect the quality of the grapes in their vineyards, which is obviously difficult to do. I once had a French winemaker tell me that the most difficult thing to accomplish is to do less in winemaking to make the best. And I think it’s true.

READ MORE OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK: OUR TOP 100S FROM 2021

Meanwhile, a trip to the other side of California’s Spring Mountain in Sonoma County at the high-altitude vineyards of Cornell highlighted what Americans will do to make excellent wine just about anywhere. Financial wizard Henry Cornell from New York City has been making impressive cabernet sauvignon-based wines on the mountains of the area from about a dozen acres of vines, and despite all the difficulty from extreme slopes, weather conditions and fires over the last two decades, he has delivered some fantastic wines, particularly the new vintages such as 2018 and 2019.  These are true mountain reds with a finesse and pedigree of classic cabs from Napa, even though they’re from Sonoma.

Mountain character is also what Diamond Creek has been all about for decades in Napa Valley, and I was happy to taste the 2018 and 2019 vintages of this legend, which in 2020 was sold to the same owner as Louis Roederer Champagne. I tasted the new vintages with the head of Roederer wine estates in the U.S., Nicole Carter, and her team and I had a good feeling about the future of this special estate that will need some investment and tender loving care to improve their vineyards (through replanting) and facilities.

GOVERNOR'S (HARD) CASE

It was not all good news last week from all our American wine tastings, however. Following our excellent report on Virginia wines earlier this year, we tasted the 2022 “Governor’s Case” – a selection of Virginia’s best wines from the annual Governor’s Cup tasting competition organized by the state government. Unfortunately, they failed. Of the 12 wines in the case, we rated four wines below 90 points, and two wines were even rated below 88. The top wine of the competition was the Cana Loudoun County Unité Reserve 2019, which we rated 88 points. We have covered Virginia for many years now and know that the state has better wines to offer.

The star wine of the selection, by the way, was the Michael Shaps Wild Meadow Vineyard Chardonnay 2019, which showed fantastic depth and complexity. Where were all the other outstanding quality wines like this in the Governor’s Case?

Finally, I was so elated to taste the latest vintage of Tenuta San Guido Bolgheri-Sassicaia Sassicaia, the legendary red made on the coast of Tuscany. The cabernet sauvignon-based offering illustrates how French blends from Italy can be as great and unique as the best wine made from indigenous grapes such as sangiovese, and I have personally tasted almost every vintage of Sassicaia since 1958, one of  first vintages the family ever made of the wine. The 2019, just on the market, is an archetypal modern Sass with some of the complexity and vibe of the 1980s. Look at the rating.

There are so many ratings to check out this week, with 903 in total – a weekly tasting record at JamesSuckling.com  – from so many places, ranging from the U.S. and Europe to Argentina to Uruguay.

TASTING SASSICAIA: James chats with the owner of Tuscany’s Tenuta San Guido, Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta, and her assistant, Elena Brachini, about the latest Sassicaia.