Out of all the months in the year to visit Napa, April is by far the best. There is a buzz around the Valley that is infectious. Bud break is in full swing, the vineyards are vibrant, patrons are packing out restaurants and tasting rooms; life, for a moment, is perfect. Apart from the fire-plagued 2020 vintage, Napa has seen a string of stunning growing seasons with 22’s slowly starting to trickle out while the 23’s are still racked in the barrel. This leads to the question: will these vintages follow suit with success or is the good luck starting to halt? Over the last week, David and I were able to venture up to our great state’s premier wine destination to find out what the inside scoop is on the 2022 and 2023 vintages, reconnect with old friends, as well as finding out what and who is Napa’s next big thing.

Old Friends & New Faces:

            Our trip was primarily focused around two of Napa’s premier tasting events of the year, the Taste of Oakville and the Annual Grand Napa Library Tasting, which blessed us with the opportunity to reunite with old pals and meet some of the new blood in the Valley that you ought to know. The first name that pops to mind from our trip is Winemaker Julien Fayard who is currently apart of 27 different projects in the Valley right now. Yes, 27 projects and he is a father of three, lets tip our hat to this man.

Fayard has been a Napa regular since 2003 after a successful stint at Quintessa learning under the world renown Phillipe Melka. Since then, everything Julien has touched has turned to gold and his wines are really starting to hit new strides. We met with Julien on Monday at his home base Covert Estates over in Coombsville to taste his various 23’s in barrel. Being in the same room with someone as talented as Fayard is awe-inspiring leaving me, at times, speechless.

To marry French winemaking techniques with the terroir of the Napa is not easy, Fayard makes it look seamless. He spoke about the differences in the 2022 and 2023 season and one thing stood out to me: These are both incredible vintages but with striking differences. Fayard (as did many other of his peers’) hailed the 2023 vintage as a very easy growing season with consistent weather and even ripening of the grapes. 2022 on the other hand is a bit more feminine with consistencies that parallel the successful yet uneven 2018 vintage.

His wines, even in barrel are singing and you can tell he is pleased with the juice in the glass. Recently Fayard just took over winemaking for Gemstones, previously made by Thomas Rivers Brown, their 2021 Facets is his first vintage and for $60, it may be the best bang for your buck in the valley right now. Another new face, or faces, was the lovely folks over at Kaiser Family Wines over in Calistoga. David and I met them whilst tasting the Grand Library tasting on Sunday and we were both floored by how incredible their wines were, expect to see them hitting our shelves in the near future.

Though it was amazing meeting new friends, it was a blessing to revisit some of those who are the reason we still venture up to Napa. Whilst enjoying the star-studded Taste of Oakville we reconnected with dear friends such as Bruce and Heather Phillips of VHR, Winemaker Sean Capiaux of O’Shaughnessy and Capiaux, Jenn Rossi of Miner Family Wines, and Doug Stanton of Stanton Wines.

On our last day of the trip, we visited the new project on Howell Mountain, Almacerro, led by long-time friends of the store winemaker Francoise Peschon and the iconic Vineyard Manager Mike Wolff. We toured the property, enjoyed their 2018 and 2019 estate Cabernet Sauvignon, and shared life. It was the cherry on top of what was an incredible trip. One of the highlights of the entire trip was seeing the legendary Betty O’Shaughnessy and Paul Woolls of O’Shaughnessy and Progeny Wines on Sunday, to be able to briefly chat with them was absolute treasure.

To those I missed, I apologize, do know you are loved dearly by us Bakersfieldians!

Vintage Reports:

As mentioned earlier, Napa has found itself in a flurry of a multitude of ridiculously great vintages (barring 2020). Its fair to say that the trend is continuing with the 2022 and 2023 vintage with ’23 appearing to be a legendary year. Though both will be homerun’s, stylistically they are quite different. 2023, as vintners said consistently, was one of the easiest vintages winemakers and vineyard manager’s have ever seen. Mike Wolff of Almacerro and Scarecrow described it as “waking up every morning and not having to worry about what is going to happen next.” The lack of stress caused by the ’23 was apparent as everyone was still in good spirits heading into the vigor’s of 2024. 2022 was a different story.

The growing season was irregularly uneven and was marred by a ten-day heatwave that occurred at the beginning of September, maybe the worst time for this to happen. Fortunately, most wineries were able to pull grapes from the vine that retained ripeness and even sugar levels making for a bold and early-drinking vintage. To make things easy I would describe 2022 as ripe with plush fruit yet very restrained in style whilst 2023 is elegant full of precision and finesse.

Enjoy the 22’s early whilst the 23’s lay down in bottle. While the Valley sees more and more corporations and private-equity firms come in and disrupt the old, relaxed ways of doing business there are still a few resting on their laurels. It is a pleasure to do business with these folks that still shake your hand and look you in the eyes whilst doing so. This is what built the Valley into what it is today and that is not something to forget.