Wine & Spirits - Winter 2023 - 20

NEW PLANTINGS AT SPOTTSWOODE'S SPRING CREEK VINEYARD
Wines, whose main gig is Premiere
Viticulture Services, his consultancy
in partnership with Garrett
Buckland, working with vineyards
all over the valley. When it comes
to cabernet sauvignon, Matthiasson
believes, " It's resilient, it has
good vigor, it can shade itself, and
has a long ripening period, with
thick skins and tough berries that
can handle the heat. "
He adds, " The Napa Valley is
an extremely diverse place-not
just soils, but climate. Carneros
has two-thirds the heat accumulation
as Calistoga, and Carneros is
still thought of as too cool for cabernet;
so is Oak Knoll. " Matthiasson
finds there are still parts of the
valley that aren't ready for cabernet,
which means that the area as
a whole is likely to be viable for a
lot longer-rendering this discussion
premature at best. " If you're
Larkmead, it's a different situation
than if you're Sinskey, " he says.
Since Petroski left Larkmead to
concentrate on his own label, Massican,
Avery Heelan has taken over
winemaking duties, including the
alternative varieties project; she
plans to take it forward as Petroski
had envisioned. " Our owners just
celebrated their 75th anniversary, "
says Heelan. " That's partly why
sustainability arguments are an
easy sell with this family. If what
we're doing allows us to make
better wine, it's worthwhile. The
finance guys might disagree, but
we want to plan for the next 75
years, too. "
In 2023, Heelan was able to
20
WINE & SPIR IT S
harvest enough grapes to make
wine. " I think it might have been
the wrong season to assess them, "
she admits. " These varieties were
planted for bad conditions, and
the vintage has been too perfect. "
Early fermentation trials
are promising, but she insists, it's
not time yet to jump to any conclusions.
" We're still looking for
clues as to which of these makes
the best wines, as individual as
possible. "
Weinkauf is taking a different
approach to his experimental
plot at Spottswoode. The winery
is planning to release a bottling
in the coming years and, at least
for now, it's a field blend. Not only
does Weinkauf love field blends,
he loves Napa Valley's history
with them, and hopes this might
contribute to that tradition. The
2023, still in tank, its fermentation
incomplete, is wiry and rustic,
full of untamed energy. The 2022,
made with a co-fermentation of
all of the red varieties, is considerably
more composed, with streaks
of blue fruit. It's polished in spots,
patchy in others, still showing
some of that fidgety and untamed
character apparent in the 2023.
Neither wine is in its finished
state, nor is the discussion of what
the future holds for Napa Valley's
vinelands. The valley's growers
are unlikely to abandon cabernet
sauvignon. But when it comes to
experimental varieties, whether
presented on their own or as field
blends, there will be more action
in the years to come. l
W INTER 2023
Slimmer Glass
by PATRICK J. COMISKEY
C
limate change did not
begin in 2017, but that
is the year, most agree,
when the California wine industry
could no longer ignore it. As
vast swaths of Napa, Sonoma
and Lake counties were ravaged
by deadly and violent fires, every
breath through an N-95 mask
brought a newfound urgency to
the threat of global warming.
Another year of conflagration
followed in 2018; in 2019, the Torres
family of Penedès, Spain, and
the Sonoma-based Jackson family
combined forces to found the
International Wineries for Climate
Action, an organization
designed to coordinate efforts in
the global wine community to
slow a warming climate; they set
out to facilitate a concrete, comprehensive
and scalable response
to the challenges the industry
faced, with the goal that each
member achieve zero emissions
by 2050. That membership now
stands at nearly fifty wine companies
worldwide, many of them
large and influential.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SPOTTSWOODE AND O-I GLASS
Wine & Spirits - Winter 2023

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