the three best wines in Napa
I don’t intend to start each blog off with an excuse on why these take so long to put together, but here we are again.
Last month got away from me. Plain and simple.
I’d sit down to write, get distracted, and the next thing I knew it was September…
Time kept slipping away…(that one is for you, Jesse)
The good news, however; is that this past July I visited Napa Valley along with a few friends and have a plethora of wines to share and write about.
So this blog is going to be a little different.
Instead of fully focusing on one wine, doing a deep dive on why it’s cool, the region, etc. I want to dial in on the full trip and share three wines with you, that I believe, were the best wines each day and are indicative of what Napa Valley really is.
do I like Napa? you bet shiraz I do!
(Shouts to my fellow BB fans out there)
It’s important to know a few background details about the trip.
You see, this isn’t my first rodeo. I usually go to Napa with the same group of friends, and we have this down to a science. So I wanted to give you a quick background that will help contextualize what we do and give you some recommendations or “life hacks” if you ever want to go for yourself.
For example, if you do nothing else, there are three key things you need to nail down before you travel out to the valley:
Reservations - a.k.a. - which wineries do you want to visit
Travel - a.k.a. - how we gettin’ there?
Breakfast - a.k.a. - setting yourself up for day drinking success
Fortunately, 1&2 can be handled for you, if you have the right guy.
Our guy is Tyler Jackson and his crew over at Napa Native.
The story of how we met and got in touch with Tyler is for another blog, but Tyler and his team are your keys to unlocking an absolutely phenomenal time in Napa Valley with truly unique, once in a lifetime, experiences.
As the name would indicate, he is a real-life native of Napa Valley. He knows the wine business front and back, knows who all the major players are, and hell, he even went to grade school with a few of them.
He is worth every penny.
Caption: Tyler (right) asking me (left) why it takes so long to get blogs on the site?
For our trip, he picked us up at the San Francisco airport at 9:00 am sharp on that Thursday morning (no small feat in itself), and within 2 hours we had the first glass of wine in our hands.
The first day looked something like this:
Thursday:
9:20 a.m. - Land in SFO
9:45 a.m. - Get bags from baggage claim - change clothes - get Starbucks for the ride up
11:15 a.m. - Arrive at the Jackson Family estate for our first glass of wine
12:30 p.m. - Lunch at Don Giovanis
2:00 p.m. - Tres Pearlas
4:00 p.m. - Be Bubbly Napa Valley
5:30 p.m. - Check into hotel
7:00 p.m. - Dinner at RH Yountville Restaurant
9:45 p.m. - Return to hotel and sleep zzzzzzz
You don’t just stumble onto something that awesome. It takes time and preparation. Fortunately, when you do, it opens a world of wine up to you, starting with wine number one.
2017 Cabernet Sauvignon - Napa Native
Oh, did I mention he makes his own wine too?
Being exposed to vineyard life at such a young age, I never truly knew how lucky I was until the spring of 2009 when I took my first viticulture class at the Napa Valley College with Dr. Krebs. I grew so passionate about wine over the next semester that I quit my restaurant job and began working at a local winery. As I continued my education of viticulture, enology, and eventually wine marketing and sales. My professional career was growing by leaps and bounds. By the age of 21 I was managing the tasting room at that small winery, educating groups as large as 40 on the estate crafted wines and the artisan skill of winemaking.
As my tours & tastings became more detailed and educational, my interest peaked and I began making my own wine. 2013 was my first vintage, I started with a small batch of Cabernet Sauvignon harvested from my family's vineyard.
Similar to a “farm to table” concept, wines can really show their character when you can get as close as you can to the source (the estate vineyard, or even better, a single block of vines). This wine really gives you a taste of what real-world Napa has to offer.
This is a tried and true Napa-style Cabernet. It’s got everything you’d want. Big and bold flavor, oak, vanilla, clove, blue/black fruits, and tannins that will rip your face off. If you go out to the valley - you’ll have lots of this, but soon you’ll begin to understand and appreciate why Cab from different areas and vintages taste (sometimes) dramatically different.
What struck me with this wine, and why I think it’s one of the best wines in the valley, is that it’s a wine that is the same time rustic, as it is opulent. It’s a little edgy, but it’s a wine and a place that has such great potential. It’s got the right amount of acid that can go the distance and the ripe juicy fruit that can only grow as it does under the Napa sun.
It feels very appropriate to place, and indicative of what real authentic Napa can be. Not the glitz and the glam of the Opus One or Cakebreads of the world (not knocking them, love me some Cakebread), but the small families that oftentimes, are the backbones of the wines you may know and love.
A pic from The Jackson Family tasting room. The real vigneron’s of Napa Valley.
2017 Trinity Blanc - Progeny
Progeny, on the other hand, is proof that Napa can shine with grape diversity. It can be so much more than “just” Cabernet or Chardonnay.
Founded in 2006 by Paul and Betty Woolls, Progeny Winery presents a love story of lives and vines rooting together. A shared passion for fine wine, cuisine and the magical Napa Valley Mount Veeder area bound Paul and Betty together in marriage and winemaking. Their 32-acre Woolls Ranch Vineyard surrounding the Progeny winery includes several Bordeaux and Rhone varieties.
We started our Friday by driving up Mt. Veeder to meet Anthony, our host for the morning’s visit. After showcasing the immaculate view, he sat us down at the Chef’s table (not very often do you see that at a winery btw), for a perfect, and I mean perfect, food and wine pairing prepared by Chef John Gerber.
In our previous blog, we talked a little about this concept, and in my mind, this was 100% proof that food and the right wine can enhance each other in magical ways.
There were 5 courses, each paired beautifully with one of Progeny’s estate wines. If I were struck dead by lightning that day, I would have been just like Bruce Willis’ character in the Sixth Sense, I wouldn’t have noticed a difference because I was already in heaven.
And while all the wines were great, there was one that really struck me, and that was the 2017 Trinity Blanc, which is a blend between Marsanne, Roussanne, and Viognier.
If you’ll allow me to nerd a little:
We produce this wine by non-malolactic, sur lie aging with bâtonnage, in stainless steel, concrete and a touch of new French oak. Thus, we create a rich and balanced mouthfeel. In appearance, the light to medium yellow color combines with excellent clarity. Showcasing aromas of apricot, acacia flower, Asian pear, kiwi, and a bee’s wax aroma. You will enjoy the delicate flavors of honey crisp apple, orange zest, pear, and quince. The balanced acidity, with great mid-palate length, rounds out our unique blend.
Non-malo, means that this wine doesn’t give it the typical buttery characteristics you might think of when you think of normal malolactic conversion (as in Chardonnay), so the wine is much cleaner, sharp, or crisp. However, sur lie aging with bâtonnage, means that there is contact with “lees” a.k.a. the dead yeast that happens in normal fermentation, which again you typically see in California Chardonnay. This gives the wine some of the bready or yeasty (for lack of a better word), and creamy flavors, because of its interaction with yeast in the barrel. Double however, with the vessel(s) being a mix of stainless, concrete, and a touch of new oak, really just mess with your mind. Stainless imparts no oak flavor, meaning you’re bringing that acidity front and center, concrete is a whole other concept we should dig into at some point that you rarely see used, and some new oak gives it the baking spices (vanilla, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc.). This is a complex, yet incredibly well-balanced wine, and because of the relatively uncommon grape varieties, you get a symphony of aromas, flavors, and textures that leave you just starstruck.
It’s an incredible wine, and I can’t wait to get a hold of it in my next shipment.
Run valhalla.exe
2017 'King's Row' Cabernet Sauvignon - Checkerboard
Finally, we arrive at Diamond Mountain for wine #3.
Quick recap:
Thursday - Wine #1 - Spoke to the small, family-owned properties that a lot of “big name” wineries will use to source from (typically to scale larger production)
Friday - Wine #2 - Showed that Napa can be great with other grapes not named Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay
Saturday - We arrive at Checkerboard Vineyards, which speaks to the pinnacle of what Napa can be, and why these wines are respected worldwide.
Checkerboard Vineyards is located on the southeast facing slope of Diamond Mountain in Napa Valley. The estate includes a winery, cave and four vineyard sites, joined by a two-and-one-half mile drive spanning the valley floor to the top of the ridge. This dramatic setting is the inspiration for the distinctive, exceptional wines of Checkerboard Vineyards. The estate has four vineyards sites of different elevation, exposure and soil composition and are farmed sustainably. Farming practices at Checkerboard Vineyards are based on long-term sustainability and include water conservation and monitoring, permanent cover crops planted in alternating rows, and the use of entomology for pest control.
The cave complex has six individual, temperature-controlled rooms for use in winemaking and barrel aging. Barrels are placed single height for quality control and monitored for humidity and other environmental conditions using a state-of-the-art technology system. Wines are aged, bottled, hand labeled, and packed for shipment in the cave complex to ensure consistent temperature throughout its creation.
If you’ve never been to Napa, one of the things that’s hard to really grasp are the different mountain ranges that play an integral role in the climate of the region. Yes, there is indeed a valley, and it’s surrounded by various mountains that have tons of great depth and complexity (soil, slope, altitude, etc.) to the wines and wineries that sit atop.
That Saturday, we quite literally drove up Diamond Mountain to meet Gary, our host, and Certified Sommelier who gave us a tour of the Checkerboard property.
A good winery guide will instantly make you feel welcomed, may offer you a glass of rosé or sparkling wine to start, and show you one or two things about the property while reciting the 3-page script s/he memorized about the winery.
A great winery guide will feel like s/he is part of your group, they’ll lean into the things you like and are responding to about the wines, and tailor your experience to what you’re enjoying. The great ones can adapt on the fly, and if you like a certain style they have that’s not on the “menu” so to speak, will open it up anyway, because they know you’re probably going to buy it.
Gary was an exceptional guide for our group.
He welcomed us with a lovely rosé, and immediately took us under the tasting room to their wine cave deep into Diamond Mountain. If you’ve seen one wine cave, you’ve seen most, though I’ll admit this one was an exception.
Gary took us off the main row of barrels, to a side room that featured a few different tanks and a single barrel prominently in the middle of the room. He then begins to explain the wine-making process at Checkerboard, and three very important aspects.
First, they only use new French oak barrels each year for élevage. Not previously used, American or Hungarian, etc. New. French Oak. Every. Year.
That is a considerable investment the winery makes each year.
Second, everything is meticulously done by hand, including harvesting and sorting. Again, their attention to detail is paramount:
Selected berries fall into a small tub and are scooped up by a plastic pitcher for transfer to the fermentation vessel. This labor-intensive transfer method is low-tech and manual but instrumental in facilitating our whole-berry fermentation method. Berries are fermented whole, without crushing, to reduce contact with seeds and produce wines with silky, approachable tannins.
Third, (did you catch that by the way?) berries are fermented whole. One of the ways they do this, and I may misquote some of the detail so apologies in advance, was through custom barrel fermentation. Meaning, whole berries, not crushed, are put into the oak barrel, and someone rotates that barrel every 6 hours, to ensure the fruit is gently crushed and that the barries integrate slowly with the oak, extracting the juice and color in a way where they have full control over the texture and profile they want the wine to achieve at the end of the day.
While they only produce a handful of wines, the winery manages between 80-90 different individual lots each year, that go into a blend.
I can’t even begin to explain how labor-intensive this process is. Having just returned from harvest at my favorite Delaplane Cellars, the process they do at Checkerboard makes hand-harvesting sound like an absolute cakewalk.
After the cave tour, we sat down to enjoy four of Checkerboard’s immaculate wines, which, pro-tip: were decanted for 2-hours prior to our visit.
While all were absolutely incredible, my personal favorite was the 2017 “King’s Row.” If you’re going to up your wine game to Checkerboard, or get this as a very nice gift for friends/family, this is a great place to start the journey. It’s a welcoming blend that is wildly aromatic, fresh, and juicy. Of the four we tasted, the tannins were the softest on the “King’s Row,” though that’s like saying of these four boxers: Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, “Sugar” Ray Leonard, and Floyd Mayweather, - Floyd punched the softest. Each one was devastating, in a good way.
our final thought
This is honestly, and barely, scratching the surface of Napa Valley. We didn’t even get into Sonoma, Carneros, Russian River, etc. There are so many beautiful wines out west, I highly encourage you to get your calendar out and look at a weekend in the future (avoid September as that’s the prime season), and give my buddy Tyler a call to arrange a beautiful trip for yourself. You work hard darnit, treat yo’ self! You won’t regret it, and you’ll experience some fantastic wines you can’t get anywhere else. Though if you do, share them with me on IG!
-Dustin