2005 Harvest

When touring through Wine Country, I continually ask about the progress of the year's crop. My guests frequently ask me which years are the best for Napa and Sonoma County wines.

The discussion about best years usually centers on Cabernet Sauvignon. A great year for Cab may not be a great year for Pinot. However, as with many aspects of winetasting, much is in the eye of the beholder. Napa and Sonoma do not have great variation in weather from one year to the next as does much of Europe. Summers are generally characterized by warm days and cool nights. Rain during the summer and during harvest is unlikely. However, some years are considered better than others; although, few are considered bad years. The recent Cabernet vintages that are generally considered the best are 1994, 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2002. Only 1998 has the reputation of being a bad year.

Having said all of this, a good winemaker can produce excellent wine from grapes grown in an ordinary or poor year. If you find a 1998 vintage you enjoy, it will probably be a better buy than a 1999 vintage because 1998 is considered a bad year and 1999 an excellent one.

All of this takes us to the 2005 growing season. There were early reports of some Pinot Noir growers, particularly in the Russian River Valley, losing nearly all of their crops when heavy rains knocked the flowers off the vines. As harvest started, the "Napa Register" contained its annual homage to the quality of the grapes. The harvest started normally in late August when the first Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes came in for use in sparkling wine.

Then a funny thing happened. The weather never turned warm. We had only a handful of hot days during the fall. So the Cabernet grapes took forever to ripen. The fruit just hung there. Finally the harvest began and all accounts spoke of the long hang time contributing to fruit of fantastic quality, perhaps equaling or exceeding the quality of the 1997 harvest.

Then there was the surprise of the amount of fruit being harvested. The quantity of grapes being harvested exceeded all estimates. Some farmers were unable to sell their fruit and left it to rot. Many wineries had no room in their fermentation tanks for the volume of grapes coming in from the vineyards. Finding an oak barrel was nearly impossible. The latest estimate is that 3.4 million tons of wine grapes were harvested in California this year. If the estimate is accurate, this would be the largest harvest in California history, exceeding 2004 by over nine percent.

Of course, much will happen before the 2005 vintage reaches market. At this point in time, you can look forward to a lot of excellent quality wine, which should result in more wine at affordable prices. All you need to do is wait until 2007 when the Cabernet starts showing up in your local wine shop.

If you don't want to wait until 2007 to taste some excellent wines, let Blue Heron take you a private tour in Napa or Sonoma County. If you're a Cabernet lover, then we could focus on wineries that are known for their excellent Cabs. To arrange a tour, call me at (866) 326-4237 (toll free) or e-mail me by clicking here.