Cabs Have a Winning Year: 1999

Things are looking up for Napa Valley vintners. Many Cabernets from the troubled 1998 vintage may remain unsold, but the top ‘99s, now entering the market in force, are getting more takers, and with good reason. These are the vibrantly rich, supple, structured wines of Cabernet lovers’ dreams.

As usual, the late-released Cabs from Rutherford show the vintage’s highest potential. Cabernet Sauvignon is Napa Valley’s signature varietal, and Rutherford is the valley’s premier Cabernet appellation--particularly its western half, where producers such as Staglin, Niebaum-Coppola, Frog’s Leap and Galleron consistently make magnificent wines.

It was no accident that legendary Napa Valley wine men such as Gustav Niebaum and Georges de Latour founded their estates on the gentle southeast-facing slopes around Rutherford, where the vines grow on well-drained alluvial soils, basking in the morning and midday sun but getting early relief from the harshest afternoon heat. There’s a sweetness to the summer heat there, thanks largely to the slightly cooler exposure along with a localized Pacific influence. A faint sigh of cool, moist air from the Russian River Valley tempers the hottest days.

It’s a subtle influence. A person trudging through a Rutherford vineyard in August might not feel it. But the vines do, and it shows in their fruit.

The 1999 Cabernet Sauvignons being released this fall are mostly fine examples. They’re just the kind of Napa Valley Cabernet I like: beautifully concentrated and full-bodied, but lucid and defined; they are voluptuous wines, but not the dense, heavily extracted fruit bombs that come from hotter growing seasons.

From aroma through finish, a fine Cabernet from Rutherford tells a story with a moral. For the ’98 wines, it went something like, “Don’t let it rain during bud-break and bloom, and don’t let the temperatures get too high or too low.” I can still feel the soggy chill that gripped the valley through much of April and May, and maybe the vines can too. They never fully caught up after that, and many of the wines still lack the low notes that come with complete ripeness.

Wild spring weather hindered flowering and pollination, reducing the size of the ’98 crop. That’s not a bad thing in itself, because a smaller crop generally means more concentrated flavor, but cool temperatures slowed ripening, and then ferocious heat spikes up to 114 degrees had the same effect, because photosynthesis in grape vines all but stops when temperatures hit the high 90s.

The weather during the ’99 growing season was an entirely different story. The spring was stable and dry, if cool. Summer heated up slowly and remained moderate.

“It couldn’t have been more different from ‘98,” says Frog’s Leap founder and winemaker John Williams. “It was another small crop that ripened late, but it lacked the nervous quality some people find in the ‘98s. The wines have a lot of intensity, but not from the high sugars you get with too much heat. They have more subtle character.”

Despite the widespread perception of ’98 as a relatively weak vintage, vintners were unwilling to drop their prices (as European producers would have done) and the pipeline backed up into their warehouses. Now come the ‘99s at the same prices ($65-$125),

The Frog’s Leap ’99 is certainly intense and solidly structured, with earthy black fruit flavor and a rich tobacco-like note, but it also has the juicy succulence of the best Rutherford vintages.

“It’s probably the best year I’ve seen in California,” agrees Gary Galleron, a Napa Valley native and veteran consulting winemaker who produces several single-vineyard wines under his own label. “Everything got ripe, with brilliant colors and flavor that rings like a bell.” The ’99 Galleron Morisoli Vineyard is a sleek beauty with powerful fruit, elegant structure and a nicely integrated savory-sweet oak component.

Staglin Family Vineyards produced one of the most impressive Rutherford Cabs in memory. Its ravishing perfume heralds a cavalcade of dark fruit flavors focused by the distinctive high-toned savor of Cabernet Sauvignon. “It was a long, slow ripening,” recalls Staglin’s consulting winemaker Celia Masyczek. “It wasn’t a mad dash, like ’97. Any time you’ve got an extended harvest with moderate temperatures, that’s where you can really pay attention to how the grapes taste and choose exactly the right moment to pick.”

A stone’s throw away at Niebaum-Coppola, winemaker Scott McLeod produced two stunning Cabs: the sumptuously intense yet tightly wound Rubicon and the richer, more rustic Cask. McLeod says he was particularly pleased with the quality of the ’99 vintage, having been unable to produce a Rubicon in ’98. “The ’99 season reminded me of ‘97,” he says. “It was a classic Napa vintage moderated by weather that didn’t spike. That kind of vintage makes you glad you’re in the Cabernet business.”

In ‘98, says McLeod, his 35-year-old vines never developed the violet perfume that he feels is the soul of Rubicon. “Fruit from the Garden Block, the cornerstone of Rubicon, gave up the ghost early,” he says. “It never was balanced. But in hindsight I’m glad we don’t have a ’98 Rubicon out there. While other producers are struggling to sell their ‘98s, we can start with a clean slate.”