Dost thou troll? 
Lol. I never let an opportunity to bash RRV pinot go unexecuted.
I was just addressing why Carneros seems to have lost cachet. The hipster winemakers aren’t getting their fruit from there.
Are those wines as good today as they were 25 years ago? I’m curious. I have no idea.
Yes, some of the Carneros wines of today are even better than in the past! My advice is to disregard sweeping generalizations and market trends about the Carneros and get specific.
Coincidentally, a month ago I tasted a remarkable and reasonable Pinot from a “cool climate vineyard” in the Carneros:
Floral nose of raspberry. anise, dried fig, rose petal and mint. On the palate: cherries, earth and minerals. Crisp and high toned, but drinkable with a rich, round, dark, spicy fruited finish in the glass.
I would put this juice up against more expensive Pinot Noirs from more en vogue regions anytime and I am not alone in being impressed by Carneors wines again: this winery has placed Carneros wines at the French Laundry, The Grill at Meadowood and at Press!
I was so impressed by this juice, here is what my research turned up on The Stanly Ranch which is visible to the southwest from the Highway 29 Napa River bridge, the eastern edge of of the Napa portion of the Carneros.
From the Somm Journal:
“Stanly Ranch, one of the most coveted vineyards in Northern California for growing cool-climate grapes like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Located on the Napa side of the Los Carneros AVA, and in close proximity to breezy, foggy San Pablo Bay, the vineyards soils consist mostly of well-drained Haire loam. Following a bit of pre-Prohibition history going back to the late 1800s, André Tchelistcheff and Louis M. Martini began purchasing grapes from Stanly Ranch in the 1930s, as it was one of the few areas that had survived the phylloxera infestation of the 1880s. (Agriculturally innovative Judge John Stanly is credited with developing a phylloxera-resistant rootstalk.) In 1942, Martini purchased 200 acres and committed to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clonal experimentation over the next few decades. The Wente family and U.C. Davis would later join him in these efforts”
UC Davis did research in the 1950’s = right grapes in the right site.
Just keep on tasting with an open mind.
Why Carneros has lost its cachet is a good question, John. Some day, perhaps soon, we will break bread and discuss this.
I don’t think that will ever come to pass. I don’t hang out with your type.
My question was genuine. It wasn’t rhetorical. I have no idea of current versus past quality. I remember some very nice Acacia pinots and chardonnays 30-ish years ago.
My point in that and my earlier post was that the industry and consumer tastes run in fads and the current hip thing is for wines in other relatively cool areas. (This is no knock on the currently trendy. I spent much of the afternoon tasting at Copain.)
Carneros was the new, new thing in the 1980s when I lived in the Bay Area. Now it doesn’t have a buzz. There’s no necessary correlation with quality.
What I threw out there for discussion was the possibility that the lack of buzz is due to the fact that Carneros is staked out mostly by larger producers and by producers owned by large corporations, not small producers with buzz and/or who take risks and experiment.
Richard - By the way, I’m unclear who the producer was of the Stanly pinot you liked.
I’m with Kenny; put Santa Lucia Highlands, Santa Cruz Mountains, “The True” Sonoma Coast, and Anderson Valley deep end, ahead of RRV. That cherry cola thing you get from RRV is not what I’m looking for in Pinot Noir, or wine in general.
…and I think Carneros is losing its cachet, because it’s not as well suited for Pinot than the above listed regions. It’s part of the natural selection for vineyards.
One of my theories about wine regions is that to be successful there has to be a locomotive or two. In Cote Rotie, it’s Guigal; Barbaresco, Gaja. Napa and RRV have many. In Carneros it has been Acacia, now basically disbanded, and Saintsbury, whose lower alcohol style has lost favor. Will the new brands/wines being developed by the Hydes and the Hudsons change things??
I believe Kongsgaard’s chardonnay is a blend of Hudson and Hyde fruit.
Mel - I think there’s a stong argument that Cote Rotie and Barbaresco would be just fine without Guigal and Gaja. But your point is an interesting one - what is Carneros’ signature wine/wines?
On Sainstbury - are there wines really low alcohol style. Just checked out their website and all the pinots are 14%+. I also think they’ve done themselves no favors with a distribution strategy that seems to position the wine as supermarket top shelf (although maybe that’s working forthem from a business perspective). I was shocked on my visit to their website how eyewateringly expensive their single vineyard/single block wines are.
Also an interesting point on what Hyde and Hudson vineyards might be able to contribute…
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I’m with Kenny; put Santa Lucia Highlands, Santa Cruz Mountains, “The True” Sonoma Coast, and Anderson Valley deep end, ahead of RRV. That cherry cola thing you get from RRV is not what I’m looking for in Pinot Noir, or wine in general.
…and I think Carneros is losing its cachet, because it’s not as well suited for Pinot than the above listed regions. It’s part of the natural selection for vineyards.[/quote]
Eye of the beholder I guess, but I can name only a select few wines from those regions (and none from SLH in my beholden eye), that compete with Williams Selyem Allen and Rochioli Riverblock, the Rochioli single blocks and Joseph Swan Trenton Estate (all from RRV).
I might be older than others here
I remember when Guigal put Cote Rotie on the map.
Before Gaja Barolo and Barbaresco sold for pennies
I remember selling 71 Mascarello Monprivato for less than ten bucks
In 1979 Gaja told me he wanted to sell Sori Tildenfor 35$ a bottle in the usa
I thought, good luck with that!
A friend of mine staged a blind tasting of california Pinot…later he analyzed the wines.
The wines ranged from 15 to 17+!
Acacia was a Carneros leader
Corporate goofed up and now they have sold the building!
What about Durell? not poo poo either.
I’ll take a stab. Marketing. They lost momentum the same way Bennett Valley Rhone lost momentum. Without a cheerleader the AVAs get forgotten and vineyard site trumps. I’m sure many here buy Durell but don’t remember that a portion of that is in Carneros.
I think the truth is the quality in Carneros is higher than its current reputation.
Kelli White is doing a Carneros class next month, which if you live in or near Napa I expect would be very insightful.
I’ve been having a few Carneros wines lately. I can see why it struggles a bit.
First, it has become warmer since the 1970s, and interest in Pinots and Chards has shifted to cooler areas like The Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley.
Second, I think there is a bit of a fruit-flavor issue with Carneros. Whether it is Merlot or Pinot, there is a definite terroir going on there, as all red varietals seem to carry similar plush red-fruit flavors akin to macerated strawberry. I taste it everywhere. The problem is that I rarely get anything more than the fruit flavor. I think a lot of it has to do with the clay underneath and the relative high-yields from the area in general.
In the 70s and 80s, there was no place, for the most part, that competed with Carneros except Oregon. Now there are many rival areas and collectors find the overall flavor profiles of other areas more to their liking. Hyde and Hudson make excellent Chards and some nice Syrahs from their vineyards, but for the most part I don’t think of either as Pinot-land. It’s too cold for Cab.
I do wonder if Merlot might have some future on the less deep soils, as the warmer temps of recent years are still cooler than the rest of Napa and this might do well for Merlot, which can’t stand big heat with its thinner skins. Also, Merlot needs some clay and Carneros has that. As an aside, my favorite Carneros Pinot is Donum.
Aaron Pott made a Merlot from Hudson a few years back that I really liked. Truchard has made solid Merlots from parts of Carneros for years. For Pinot though, and increasingly Chard, I think Carneros is struggling to keep up with the deeper, more structured and more complex Pinots from areas like Santa Cruz Mountains, the deep-end of Anderson Valley, the True Sonoma Coast, Freestone and The Petaluma Gap. Plus The Santa Rita Hills.
I don’t care for Anderson Valley Pinot; I went up one year and bought a couple of cases and did not like the way they aged in the short term. Donum Pinots can be excellent, Ancien Mink Vnyd,and Saintsbury Brown are both excellent IMO.
I’m a fan as well of the Hyde, Hudson, and Durell vineyard chardonnays and syrah (Hudson).
Producers I’ve enjoyed include:
– Ramey
– Tor Kenward
– Sojourn
– Bedrock
– Chasseur
– Rudius
There are many others high end wineries like Kistler and Kongsgaard that use these vineyards as well.
I agree with the comment that the wines from the area exceed their current reputation. Maybe that is because most of the great producers of these vineyards are located outside of Carneros.
BTW - I also appreciate the occasional Gloria Ferrer and Domaine Carneros sparklers.