California cabs were different beasts in the 70’s and 80’s. That’s off-repeated. And then the recent thread on best vintages being 91,94 and the back and forth on whether 97 was great or a pruney, overripe mess.
So when did the sea change occur? Was there a date? We’re the 90’s still stylistically linked to the 80’s, or had the Parker winds already hit the shore by then? And which winemakers (other than, say, Ridge, Corison, and maybe Dunn/Togni/Forman) held out longest?
They were more different in the 50’s and 60’s, already changing by the 70’s and certainly the 80’s. The changes continued to grow, but I wouldn’t call it a sea change.
-Al
Noah - were you trying any of the wines back then? It’s not about Parker so much as it was about learning and the explosion of wineries. Back in the 1970s there were very few and the market was pretty small and they were modeling on Bordeaux, notwithstanding the fact that the climate was so different.
As time went on, they found out that sunlight eliminated some of the green qualities in the Cab family, and riper, cleaner grapes made better wine. So people pushed that and pushed it and some wines got hyper-ripe. If you make a big, thick wine and get high points or at least a lot of buzz, maybe I’ll try it. But now you have a bit of a name, so two or three other people ask you to make their wine. Helen Turley made Pahlmeyer in the 1990s. The early and mid 90s Merlots were some of the best ever from CA. She also made Turley Zins until she stepped out of that role sometime in the mid 90s. Those were super-ripe and flashy wines.
Other people became interested in making Zin like that so similar wines hit the market. She mentored other winemakers, who emulated her style and yet more wines hit the market.
That happened with a few wine makers, so their philosophies were spread around. And then of course, you had the M&A people from Wall Street who wanted to flash money, so “cult” wines were born. In the crash in the early 2000s, coupled with 9/11, some of those wines lost their market and never recovered.
Some wines changed styles in the mid to later 1990s but that’s in part also a function of the explosion of wineries. At Grgich alcohol levels went up in the late 1990s. A few years later Pahlmeyer got new vineyards and wine makers. But more than that, a lot of new wineries or wine producers came into being and a lot of those newcomers hired the same people who had made their reps making the wines that were selling. Most of those new wineries didn’t even exist in 1991 and earlier, so it’s not necessarily accurate to talk about a style shift, although it is true that some wines did change style. But BV only changed in 2007 and they pre-date pretty much everyone except for a small handful.
So if you’re talking about “holding out”, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense for many wineries because they weren’t there before and had nothing to hold out against. And you’re mostly talking about Napa Cab and perhaps Zin. In 1970, there were 250 bonded wineries in CA. Then comes the Paris tasting in 1976 and the number increases to around 500 in 1980. Today there are over 4500.
At this point, if you own land in Napa, and even more if you buy land in Napa, you’re going to make Cab and you’re going to make a style that’s going to sell. It would be pretty stupid to do otherwise because you’ll end up with a garage full of your own wine that you can’t move and you’ll never recoup your investment. So although they could probably do something extraordinary with say, Sangiovese, that’s not going to come from Napa.
But there’s ever more diversity in California and I think the wine making is better than ever.
As far as 1997, when those came out they were mostly just flat out delicious. That may have been the peak year for ready-to-drink Cab-based wines. They had a great string of vintages up to that one, but that kind of capped it. Then after a few years, the wines weren’t improving. Today I think the 1994s, which were highly lauded on release, as well as the 1991s and 1992s, have turned out to be better long-term bets.
But did you buy the wine to age or to drink at peak? If those wines peaked early, the thing to do was to drink them early. Some CA Cabs, and especially Napa Cabs, can age and improve for years. But most probably are good to go right away. And not everyone likes aged Cab/Merlot as much as they like it young.
Wonderful, thoughtful response Greg, thanks!
I came into fine wine during those wonderful '91-'94 vintages. I bought and drank many, wish that I still had some. Some are still drinking beautifully today. The 1997 vintage was my last major Cali Cab vintage purchase, though even then I was seeing a stylistic difference developing, in addition to a budding palate preference to Bordeaux, Chinon and Northern Rhone.
Those years are the most treasured parts of my cellar, overshadowing even my 1982, 1986, 1989, and 1990 Bordeaux.
IMHO 1996 is the last vintage that relates to the 1980’s. In 1997, be it because of the vintage or because of winemaking, the era of increased extraction began.
Agreed. The grapes were extracted, yet the resultant wines began ironically to lack soul.
For me, it started with Helen Turley’s first vintage at B. R. Cohn, the 1984. A friend brought a bottle to a tasting, and we immediately realized that this wine was different to anything we had tasted before. There was a really appealing richness, and plushness to it, and tannins and acids were held in check, and it was an easy wine to drink and enjoy. For what we lost in complexity in depth was more than made up for with easy pleasure. Not an equation I would subscribe to now, but its uniqueness at the time made it alluring.
A group of us got together and purchased the whole East Coast allocation, which actually wasn’t that much-around 30 cases. I still have a case and a half, and I now pull it out as an interesting exercise in wine and maturity. It’s still an easy, pleasant wine, just a little softer, but it is no more complex than the first time we tried it. Parker BTW only gave it a 92, a good score before his score inflation, but not a great one.
It wasn’t until the 1990s or so, that wines like Harlan, Bryant, Colgin and of course, Screagle really began to change the way wines were made. Some of you may remember Henry Leung and Cafe Evergreen, a Chinese restaurant on the Upper east side. Henry loved these wines, and the BYOs there were legendary. I remember one of them, where Henry stood on a table, and every time somebody brought in a cult Californian, he would stand on a table, and bellow out the name. Actually, I was indifferent to the wines, usually bringing in good Bordeaux, and only once did Henry take my wine and yell from the table, a young Margaux.
Here I tasted all the cults, and although I disliked most of them, I had a soft spot for Harlan. It wasn’t until I had the weird 1997, that I stopped buying them.
I recall one of the greatest big dinners there, the theme being the Leovilles, across Las Cases, Poyferre, and Barton. I brought the 1990 Leoville Poyferre. Fond memories.
While I do refer to most of these as relatively “old school”, I don’t think anyone makes red wines they way they were in the '70s and '80s anymore, except maybe Ridge. For Cabernet, no one does. Same with Pinot Noir. ABV alone tells that story (not that it’s the only aspect that has changed, but it is really easy to look at and see that the wines are now grown and structured very differently).
I haven’t drunk enough California cab in the last 15 years to help pin down a date, but I will add these thoughts:
Some years back (late 2000s), I came on some research on average alcohol levels in Napa wines, which showed a big increase – 1% or more – over a 10 or 15-year period. That’s quite a rise when you think about it. It began in the late 80s or early 90s, as I recall. (I’ve tried several times to find the research again via Google, but haven’t been able to.)
No one has mentioned the advent of consultants who advertised that they could tell winemakers how to make wines that would garner big Parker scores. In other words, a formula developed for high-octane, high-points wines.
From a pure brix POV:
Vintage Napa Cab
2016 25.9
2015 26.1
2014 26
2013 26.3
2012 25.1
2011 23.8
2010 24.5
2009 25.1
2008 25.7
2007 25.5
2006 25.6
2005 25.4
2004 25.8
2003 24.9
2002 25.4
2001 24.8
2000 23.9
1999 24.3
1998 24
1997 24.5
1996 23.7
1995 23.6
1994 23.2
1993 23.3
1992 23.3
1991 23
1990 23.1
1989 22.6
1988 22.8
1987 22.9
1986 22.7
1985 22.6
1984 23.1
1978 23.1
Adam Lee
Any comparable index for oak?
Thanks, Adam. Here’s what your data looks like in a graph – which really shows how dramatic the rise in ripeness has been. Even the very cool 2011 vintage, when many wines supposedly were underripe, had higher brix than vintages in the 1980s.
It also shows the uptick people perceived anecdotally after 1996, but the real rocket rise starts around 2000.
I found the oak index.
In general, this.
Even so, we’re talking across what, all of Napa? I looked at listed ABV for a bunch of top wines from 1991-1997 relatively recently and was surprised at the number already over 14% by that period among better producers. Small sample size and I didn’t track results, and yes I know listed ABV is inaccurate, but it was still a bit surprising.
I also find it humorous that 2011 is seen as a poor, green vintage for much of Napa. I think cult wines and top producers were spotlighted so much in those early 90s years because they stood out as high quality, well balanced wines when many others were underripe and green. So in a year like 2011 where the general characteristics are reverted back to that time period, top producers remain largely excellent while the masses struggle. Not sure that’s any different than those early years in the 90s.
Maybe buy top tier 2011 in large quantities, wait 12 years, enjoy as if from 1991-1996?
From someone who enjoys Ridge wines regularly, can I ask what, specifically, they do differently?
John,
Interestingly, and probably not coincidentally, Napa Vintners spent over half a billion dollars replanting Napa vineyards after the second pylloxera epidemic and moved away from AxR1 roostock from the late 1980s to the late 1990s.
Adam Lee
I assume Adam’s Brix figures reflect the grapes at harvest. There is a lot of watering or reverse osmosis these days, so the ABV in the finished wines may not reflect their potential alcohol based on sugar levels.