In this Planet Grape Wine Reviews vodcast episode, host Speaker A, along with panelists Deborah Parker Wong (Global Wine Editor, Somm Journal) and Fred Swan (Certified Sommelier), recaps the 2020 Premier Napa Valley trade event and its associated auction, which raised $4 million for Napa Valley Vintners. They explain the annual “Perspectives Tasting,” a blind tasting of three consecutive vintages (2015‑2017) from 15 Napa wineries, and provide a concise climate‑and‑style overview of each vintage. The bulk of the episode is devoted to detailed tasting notes and provenance for six standout Napa Cabernet‑based wines selected from the tasting: (1) Crocker & Starr One Post 2016 (heritage‑clone Cabernet), (2) St. Supéry Dollarhide Vineyard 2015 Cabernet, (3) M by Michael Mondavi 2016 blend (Cabernet‑based with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petite Verdot), (4) J. Davies 2016 Diamond Mountain Cabernet, (5) Corison 2016 Kronos Vineyard Cabernet, and (6) Scattered Peaks 2017 Small Lot (Joel Aiken’s blend of Morassoli and Sage Ridge fruit). For each wine the hosts discuss winemaker background, vineyard location, vine age, stylistic attributes, and drinking‑window considerations. The episode concludes with a reminder to view the full reviews on Planet Grape and Santé Magazine and a toast to the Napa Valley Vintners.
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Welcome to Planet Grape Wine Reviews vodcast number 7. Today we're focusing on Premier Napa Valley. We're here today with Planet Grape Wine Review panelists Deborah Parker Wong, Global Wine Editor of Somm Journal, as well as Fred Swan, Certified Sommelier of fredswan.wine. Hi Fred.
Hello.
How are you?
Doing great.
Fred and I have just returned from the tastings and auction of Premier Napa Valley. This is an annual trade-only event that this year raised $4 million to support Napa Valley Vintners' mission of protecting, preserving, and enhancing Napa Valley. We've got a lineup of 6 fantastic wines for you, but we're going to talk a little bit about the tasting we did on Friday, the Perspectives Tasting.
That's right, the Perspectives Tasting is something that they do every year at Premier Week in Napa Valley. And what it is, is a blind tasting for trade professionals. There are 15 different wineries that pour 3 consecutive vintages. The tasting is blind, so everybody knows what vintage they're tasting, but they don't know who the winery is. And this allows people to get a really good sense for what the vintage was like, comparing back and forth in rapid sequence.
Great, so we tasted '15, '16, and '17. Let's go over the vintages real quickly before we dive into our picks.
Great, so 2015 was another very good year for Napa Valley. It started quite early, then suddenly got cold, and then it heated up rapidly after that. So in the long run, it was a very early harvest. However, because of the cool weather in May and April, the yields were a little bit lower. So what you have is a relatively low volume year, but one with super rich tannins, very soft, and then really, really nice ripe fruit.
Great, so we had a contracted growing season, but super quality and lower yields.
Exactly.
Great, and what does '16 have in store for us?
So '16 was a more moderate year, it was a longer season overall. There weren't any significant heat spikes, there was no unusual weather, it was a really, relatively speaking, a drama-free year to make wine. And the result is wines that have a really lovely tannins again, but because of the somewhat cooler aspect of the year, the wines are more savory as compared to the 2015s.
Delicious, so a real sweet spot, right?
Exactly.
Really leading on to a series of very excellent vintages. '17 had something in store for us though.
Yeah, '17 started out looking like a normal year again. It was fabulous for the most part, no inclement weather, a little bit of a heat spike late, but no big deal. And everything was fabulous until October 8th when the valley caught on fire. Fortunately, 90% of all the fruit in Napa Valley had already been harvested, so the fire wasn't nearly as devastating in that respect as it might have been. And I should point out as well that some people are concerned about smoke taint, and that's really not going to be an issue for this vintage in Napa Valley because none of the reputable wine growers are going to reduce, release any wine that is substandard in any way. And I actually found 2017 to be a tremendous vintage at the Perspectives tasting.
I have to agree with you, I did as well too. So we have a vintage of great finesse and elegance, right? So let's dive in. We've got a superb collection of wines here, some from the hillsides and some from the valley floor. I think we've got a little bit of something for everyone. I'm dying to learn about your picks, Fred. So let's put up your slide on your first wine, and we'll take it from here.
So my first wine is from the winery Crocker and Starr, which is located in southern St. Helena on the valley floor. The winemaker there, Pam Starr, is a tremendous winemaker. She's been in the valley for quite some time. This is their One Post wine, which is 100% Cabernet. made from heritage clones, and by this we mean clones of Cabernet Sauvignon that are quite unique to Napa Valley in a way. And so you really get a classic sense of fruit and character.
Maybe even Rocker and Star.
Yeah, well, exactly.
She has a lot of interesting clonal material.
She does, yeah. And so these are old vines from the valley floor, and the wine is just phenomenal. It's richly fruited. It's just loaded with black cherry, blackberry syrup, but there's also these sort of more savory notes, dark chocolate, chocolate malt, mocha, things like that.
So this is the '16, correct?
This is the '16, yes, thank you. And it's a wine that is super drinkable right now, but is going to age very well too. It's very well balanced. This is something we're seeing more and more, In Napa Valley now.
Oh great, accessible but age-worthy.
Absolutely, yeah. And these are not huge mouth-filling high alcohol wines, they're really graceful and beautiful.
Yeah, alcohol is not a topic for our discussion today, which is fascinating to me. All right, fantastic. Okay, so let's look at wine number 2, which is my pick. Which is great. This is the 2015 St. Supéry Cabernet Sauvignon from Dollarhide Vineyard. And this wine is very indicative of its place. Dollarhide is in the northeastern part of Napa Valley. It's a gorgeous 1,500-acre estate, 500 acres of which are under vine. Farmed, of course, the wine is made by Michael Schultz.
Mm-hmm.
And he doesn't, he hasn't overworked this wine, he hasn't over-vinified it, it really is very reflective of site. Lots of black, red and black fruit, good vanilla and cinnamon notes, and I really get very complex and interesting notes, a little bit of orangeness and camphor as I put here in the note, and absolutely no heavy-handed oak, which is just right. So this is from, this is also a superb value at $80 a bottle. This is a real steal in my opinion. So we're really looking forward to this one in glass.
And so my next wine is again a 2016. It is M by Michael Mondavi, that is the name of the wine. And this is a project, it's a family project. So Michael Mondavi, one of Robert Mondavi's sons, Michael has been in the industry since the very early 1970s. And this is a project with 2 of his kids, particularly Rob Jr., Michael's son, who does most of the winemaking. This wine is from the Animo Vineyard. Animo, not animal. Animo Vineyard in Atlas Peak, which is a mountainous area in southern Napa Valley. Oh, I know the place. And it's actually from a valley on the mountain. It's from a place called Foss Valley, which is a trough-like valley at 1,300 feet.
It's a valley above the valley.
Exactly.
Dollarhide is too, actually, it's a valley above the valley.
And so this wine is from that vineyard, which is their estate vineyard, and it is unlike the Crocker and Starr. This one is a blend, so it's not quite 75% Cabernet, but there's Merlot, there's Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petite Verdot, and what you have is somewhat more savory wine. than the Crocker and Starr, but again gorgeous. The tannins are really sort of voluptuous, suede-like, like a soft suede in your mouth. And then you've got, in addition to the black currant fruit, you've got red fruit like strawberry, herbal notes, bay leaf, espresso, cocoa, really, really lovely things going on in this wine.
So Rob used that spice rack of those other varieties.
Exactly, yeah. Really make it very And you get the cool climate aspect of it as well from, from the altitude.
Great, well wine number 3 is the 2016 J. Davies Cabernet Sauvignon. So we've got lots of 2016 in here. Let me stop the share here. Great, so J. Davies, this is a Diamond Mountain wine, a Cabernet that's from some vineyards around this place called Janie's Grove, which is really beautiful. spot up on Diamond Mountain. So we've got mountain fruit here, but it's been very respectfully vinified. It's not been over-extracted or overworked. So all, but it's very dark, dark fruits, dark chocolate, dark spice, and then as it expands in your palate and on the finish, we get a little dried herbs and cinnamon and leather and a little more delicate flavors on the finish, which I really like. So this wine I've said drink or hold as long as you can wait.
Mm-hmm.
Because it's, you just want to get right in the glass. So it's, so It's a wine particularly good for someone who likes lots of dark fruit up front, but a lot of finesse as well too.
Kind of is. And then next, my next wine is another Napa Valley classic. It's again a 2016, it's the 2016 Corison Winery Cabernet Sauvignon from their Kronos Vineyard. So Corison is again in southern, it's in southern St. Helena, In Napa Valley, but now it's closer. North Napa Valley. It's closer to the bench, it's on the west side, very well-drained soils. And the Kronos Vineyard is actually quite old vines, it's planted for Cabernet Sauvignon, it's planted in 1971. And it's really become a classic in the valley. And Cathy Corison, the winemaker, has been celebrated for a long time. She was a Chronicle Winemaker of the Year one time, Absolutely. So super wines, and this particular wine, as is usual for Cathy, is leaner in style. It is a medium-bodied wine as opposed to medium-plus or full-bodied, but it's really energetic, meaning it's just loaded with beautiful acidity and also has good tannins. And so the flavors are bright with really dynamic fruit, but you also get these cooler climate, earlier ripening or earlier harvest flavors like bay leaf, manzanita leaf, dark flowers, things like that, mineral that really give character. And like the other Corison, Kronos, this is a wine that'll age 30 years.
I left that slide up there a little bit too long, but you know, Calke's vineyard, Kronos Vineyard, is right up against the Mayacama there, so that afternoon shade of the Mayacama cools that vineyard down. Isn't that the effect that we're looking at here in this iconic vineyard?
Yeah, so you don't get the afternoon sun on that side of the valley, and the afternoon sun is always warmer and more harsh. So you get a longer ripening period, and it's a much more even temperature kind of area.
Right, for a valley floor wine, it really is an exception in that way. Okay, well, final wine of the lineup here. this afternoon. Let's move forward. A wine, oh excuse me, 2017 Scattered Peaks. This is a new one, the Scattered Peaks Small Lot. It is a wine by another very iconic winemaker, Joel Aiken, who is an emeritus winemaker from Beaulieu Vineyard. Joel is working here with one of his favorite vineyards, the Morassoli Vineyard, which is on the valley floor there in Rutherford. And he's gone up to Atlas Peak, to that high elevation vineyard in Atlas Peak, the Sage Ridge Vineyard, for 40% of the fruit here. This is, in my opinion, Joel at his absolute finest. He has just married these 2 vineyards together, the higher elevation mountain fruit with the Mourassoli fruit on the valley floor that he's worked with for decades. So we couldn't ask for a more delicious way to wrap up this show today. So I found lots of cassis and boysenberry, that red and black mashup fruit that we have, some mulberry, as well too, not sweet black fruit, tobacco, and licorice, and an absolutely seamless framework of oak, because there was no sharp elbows on this wine. This was just so approachable and so well integrated. I found it just absolutely delicious. So well, that's it. We've got 6 wines there for you, and you can find the complete review of these wines on Planet Grape Wine Review, and other wines from the Premier Napa Valley Auction as well too. And also on Santé Magazine where you can watch this podcast. We'd like to thank the Napa Valley vintners for hosting us at the auction this year. Cheers!
Cheers!
To Premier Napa Valley!
