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There’s nothing more hedonistic and folklorish in the world of wine than fine Napa Cabernet and Ribeye steak. The pairing is practically written about in antiquities. Steakhouses from the most ordained and posh, to the lowest and most humble of chains, deck their menus out with so many ubiquitous Napa Valley options it’s difficult to remember whether any other wines even exist at all. Furthermore, when the wine arrives at the table to compliment your steak dinner, it’s a wonder any other wine even exists anyway. It’s a perfect match.
Wine has been made in the Napa Valley since the early nineteenth century, and was a product of the gold rush to California. Thousands of people flocked to the coasts of California in search of undeniable riches, and ended up finding the soil and backdrop that so successfully maintains vineyards in this area still today. One of those such vintners was George Calvert Yount, who established fifty acres of vines in the area we now know as Yountville, the very heart of Napa Valley. Many others would follow suit, birthing what we know today as the Valley Floor AVA’s.
To understand Napa, we need to get a grip on the topography. Napa Valley is just that: a Valley, and valley is surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains, this topography can vary wine quality greatly. Napa Valley is a foggy area, being so close to the bay and storied fogs of San Francisco, the morning dews that blot out the sun around this region are crucial to delayed ripening of the tannins of the grape's skins.
A second group of pioneering winemakers, including the Mondavi family, who catapulted the region of Napa into what it is today, began to look above what’s referred to as, the “Fog Line,” to build the next generation of wineries up on the slopes of the mountains that would decrease production of grapes but provide more access to the sun and a longer growing season due to cooler conditions. A longer growing season means thoroughly ripened grapes, and sunlight will mean thoroughly ripened tannins, for wines that are storable, or drinkable sooner than some of the legacy Valley Floor vines.
Due to this variation in topography, Napa has some of the smallest AVA’s in the country. all fifteen of them produce wines of excellent quality, but all terroir impart different characteristics on the wine. If we look at the areas individually based on sunlight and soil we can see varying pictures of Napa Valley as a wine region. Some are more mineralic, reserved and European-like, and other bottles are rich, jammy, and soft, much like a quality Merlot.
AVA’s in this area are so specific to the type of wine produced here that many of the sub-AVA’s dictate which grapes can be planted and which cannot. The majority grape in Napa is the king of grapes himself, Cabernet Sauvignon. That being said, if we look due east toward Wild Horse AVA, this single estate focuses mainly on their cooler climate grapes, like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Yountville is sometimes called the original AVA, as this was the place that Vinifera grapes were first cultivated in Napa. George Yount brought vilification here in 1839, and scoured the land with Vitis Vinifera grapes amongst the pear groves and vegetable farms sprawled out upon the fertile soil of the basin. In 1861, a fellow named Charles Krug, a Prussian immigrant, began his winery, and an enology club locally.
Unfortunately, it was not common knowledge at the time, that planting grapes in fertile soil makes growing high quality wines quite difficult, as the vines need constant pruning and attention to mitigate their overproduction. The soils in the Yountville area are very suitable for crops. They are highly mineral-dense volcanic silt and lava rock with medium drainage and soft marl.
Charles Krug’s Winery is still operational today. From its inception in 1861, until now, the winery has continued to make their awe-inspiring and historic wine, despite the setbacks. The early twentieth century was a hard time to be a grape grower. France had seemed to have found a cure for Phylloxera, the vine-eating louse that ravaged Europe in the late eighteen hundreds. The key was grafting root stocks from immune Vitis Lambrusca varietals onto Vinifera fruit. America’s vineyards hadn’t yet been replaced with the new root stock.
This scourge destroyed the vast majority of plantings in Napa Valley, but it also ravaged other parts of the US, including Virginia and the Southern California plantings. By the time the rootstock was replaced, the US Government had amended the constitution to prohibit the usage and sale of alcoholic beverages. Any of the vintners that had used their vines to produce wine must now do so illegally, or medicinally. Quality plummeted.
Nearing the end of World War II, Cesare and Rosa Mondavi, immigrants from Sassaferrato Italy, purchased the struggling Krug winery, and began to look towards the hills, setting sights on higher quality wines at yields. This meant higher-priced bottles of wine for the emerging American consumer.
Today The Charles Krug winery has expanded drastically, and has holdings in almost every major AVA in Napa Valley. The winery is below the fog line, which means overall a cooler growing season in the morning, and the winery must focus on planting vines on southeastern slopes, to ripen grapes thoroughly. They also take an aggressive role in training the vines to prevent over-ripening, and overcropping.
The Yountville Reserve from Charles Krug is a classic of Napa valley. It’s smooth, silky, juicy and brimming with red fruit flavor. There are subtle hints of cassis and strawberry seeds, with secondary characteristics of cardamom and rosemary. This wine is aged in American oak barrels and this imparts Ometepe and pistachio flavor onto the secondary characteristics of the wine. There is also an Earthy complexity of wet dirt and Spanish tile. The wine is rich, but balanced, and sits evenly on the palette as it finishes leaving a nice tinge of acid and mulberry.
Charles Krug’s original property was just several miles away from Yountville, in St. Helena. This area spans about 9000 acres around the bottom of Spring Mountain. The AVA was originally settled by George Crane. His original vineyard was planted with a mix of Mission grapes from southern California. The area today is well regarded for its ripe, juicy expressions of Cabernet Sauvignon. this area is just at the cusp of the fog line and some vineyards hover above it, some below, again this is just in reference to the amount of morning sunlight exposure the vines can receive when planted here.
George Crane’s vineyard is not regarded for its ripeness or fruitiness today. In fact, it’s well known for being an heir to the line of the great Chateau Haut Brion, first growth of Bordeaux. It must be noted that this wine commands similar prices to its Bordeaux cousin, as well. This vineyard sits slightly in line with the fog line, and spans only a few acres. It is pruned and managed carefully, so that production maxes out at around six thousand bottles per year.
Unlike the rest of the soil in Napa, this vineyard, referred to as Beckstoffer Dr. Crane, is full of tiny gravel pebbles, similar to that of Graves. Paul Hobbs grows incredible grapes here with wonderful attention to detail and his wines are priced well for this vineyard. These are excellent draining soils and they provide crisp minerality. You can smell them in the finished product along with gunflint, cassis, graphite, fresh blueberry, and strawberry. The wine is explosive and reserved, with a long finish and silky mouthfeel. It oozes perfume and exhaustive floral minerality.
By contrast, high above the slopes on the eastern side of the valley floor is the great Howell Mountain AVA, with its coniferous trees and unabating winds. Howell Mountain wines come from relatively newer wineries, some experimental projects, and others sharply serious endeavors of hopeful fortunes. This beautiful AVA sits high above the fog line, with slopes facing many different directions, and is a grand auspice to the sunlight the peaks command.
All of these conditions makes for practically the pristine spot to grow grapes. You have a perfect storm of committed vintners, high elevation, leading to slower ripening of the grapes, winds to keep them cool, and plenty of sunlight to befit the tannins and esters. Mercifully, the soil is a picture perfect array of intermediate volcanic rock, and alluvial limestone that drains quick and forces the vines to struggle to find nutrients. Far less intervention is needed here, and that is made well clear by Howell Mountain winemaker Lokoya.
Their incredible wines are sough after the world over. They have several challenging vineyards to harvest here, and have lost none of their reputation and good favor amongst wine lovers. The vineyards of Cabernet are nestled about 1825ft above sea level, and the diurnal shift on Howell mountain allows for flavor complexity that’s difficult to achieve anywhere else.
These grapes receive all day sunlight and their flavors mature to make very complex, yet decadent wines perfect for pairing with steak. The tannin is bold and granular, grippy and dramatic.The intermediate volcanic rocks result in less extended contact with cooling water, but more hedonistic flavors that speak to the rancio style of production available only to growers on the hills.
Whether you’re choosing to pair with a Cabernet from the Valley, the intermediary, or the mountains, the reason this pairing works so well is the sheer boldness of any of these styles. The very Euro-centric flavor of the Crane vineyard still ripens to reveal its delicate fruit, with enough balance of acidity to cut through the fat of the steak, with a satin rope to wash down each bite.
The brashness and cavalier rancio of the Mountain grown Cabernet dons a sword of grippy tannin, like over steeped tea, with the bold fruit and zippy acidity to totally eclipse the weightiness of the meat. Yet the wine will still display the complexity needed to carry the meal and the same delicate red fruit flavors that will act as a counterpoint to the iron in the blood of the meat.
And the juiciness of the Valley floor cannot be overlooked here either. It flows as a river of cherry on the palette to counterbalance the salty and fatty steak. The richness is mouth filling and the wine yet again provides the same relief of grippy texture and fat richness that Napa is known for. Stylistically, these are three different wines, but all of them reflect the beautifully diverse terroir of Napa in a way that’s unique, but with enough consistencies to call them similar.
That's all,
~K