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Our team spent several weeks exploring the 2023 vintage in Burgundy – visiting, tasting and talking to a range of producers up and down the Côte d’Or. Here, we offer a run-down of the year by producer, from north to south, reporting on how each fared and our pick of their range this year

A run-down of the Burgundy 2023 vintage wines en primeur by producer: from Fourrier to Lafon via Bernstein, Lamarche, Lambrays, Duroche and Hudelot-Noellat 

Burgundy 2023 vintage by producer 

Burgundy 2023: by producer

Some wine regions dance to the beat of their own drum. From the sweeter reds of Ethiopia’s Rift Valley to the soft-styled fizz of Altos de Pinto Bandeira, Arnica Rowan explores far-flung regions with distinctive approaches to growing vines and making wine – almost exclusively for their own people

Arnica Rowan explores wines that don’t make it to the international market – with distinctive styles from Ethiopia, Brazil, Thailand and beyond

Discover the wines of Ethiopia, Brazil and beyond

Not for export

Over two trips to the region, our team delved into the 2022 vintage – visiting, tasting with and talking to a range of producers up and down the Côte d’Or. Here we break down the year by producer, from north to south, with a summary of how each fared and our favourite wines from the tasting table

A run-down of the Burgundy 2022 vintage wines en primeur by producer: from Fourrier to Lamy via Bernstein, Lamarche, Lambrays, Duroche and Hudelot-Noellat

Burgundy 2022 – the vintage by producer

Burgundy 2022: by producer

Touching down in Burgundy last week was a shock. Coming from London’s autumnal hues, the hit of hot air as the plane doors opened was surprising – indeed, it’s abnormally balmy across much of Europe at the moment. It’s another reminder of climate change and the very real impact it is having – especially on viticulture and other agriculture. While the cool and rainy 2021 vintage felt like a return to the old Burgundy (with all its challenges), 2022 and 2023 were both modern vintages that speak of global warming. The region’s vignerons were in a good mood, with the 2023 vintage harvested weeks ago and the wines safely in the cellar. For once, they have had not one but two consecutive vintages offering decent volumes, helping to make up for a run of tiny crops. The cellars are – at last – looking a little less barren. Indeed, the regional body Vins de Bourgogne reported that 2022 represents a 75% increase on the measly volumes of 2021. The 2022 vintage, however, was the reason for and focus of our visit – getting our first taste of the wines that will be dominating the calendar for the next few months. As I’ve mentioned, this was a modern vintage, a year that is very much the new normal. The winter was cold, however warmer temperatures in February and March saw an early start to the season. Once again the mercury dropped in April with the threat of frost, however it didn’t seem to have major ramifications. The summer was warm and dry – with heavy rain in late June breaking the drought, providing essential refreshment for the vines in the year’s arid conditions. At Louis Jadot, Thibault Gagey explained how there were two weeks in August with temperatures over 35˚C, during which the vines shut down. Alvina Pernot explained how plots with richer soils – those with more clay and better water retention – fared better, pointing to Clos des Folatières as a site that thrived in the year, as well as older vines with deeper roots, those that could reach and draw upon water reserves. Picking started at the very end of August, with another contracted harvest during which the ability to pick what you wanted when you wanted key to quality. The good news was that the crop was plentiful, with most managing to achieve a full crop, with a maximum of up to 15-20% less for some of the Chardonnay. Looking at the season on paper, it’s easy to imagine the resulting wines might be dominated by their ripeness – but that’s simply not the case. We need to taste and talk much more into exactly why, however it seems that the generous yield was the year’s saviour. With so much fruit for the vine to ripen, sugar levels remained moderate. As in 2020, the grapes retained high levels of tartaric acid, bringing surprising freshness to the wines. The malic acid was degraded, but this meant that the malolactic fermentation had less impact on the final wines and their balance (although we anticipate that some may still have chosen to block it). From what we’ve tasted so far, the reds show particular promise – offering juicy, concentrated fruit without drifting into over-ripe or jammy, vibrant acidity and fine-textured yet very present tannins. Those we’ve tasted are amazingly open even though few have yet finished élevage – the ripe fruit shining through, but there’s a gravitas beneath that appealing, mouth-watering fruit. The whites, meanwhile, are classical in their fruit expression, with more traditional white peach, melon, pear and citrus. There’s good dry extract and density here, with balance too. They have natural tension, and there seems to be a pleasing bitterness that adds to their freshness, something we found consistent across producers so far. In general alcohols are modest, sitting mainly between 12.5 and 13.5%, for both reds and whites. This is only the beginning of our deep dive into the 2022 vintage, however we left the sunny streets of Beaune filled with excitement about the year. There is still much to discover and explore, and much, much more to taste to inform our full vintage report – but it’s clear already that this is a year with great potential, and one that you’ll want in your cellar. We’ll be publishing more on Burgundy 2022 in due course; in the meantime, browse all current Burgundy 2022 listings.

Fresh from our first trip to Burgundy to taste the 2022s, we offer some early thoughts on the vintage – a year that is showing great promise

Fresh from our initial trip to the region, we dig into Burgundy 2022 – a warm year that has produced some surprisingly fresh wines

Our first thoughts on Burgundy 2022 en primeur

Burgundy 2022 at first glance

“It’s difficult when you don’t have vines, a winery, any equipment or money,” Stéphane Dief – co-owner and winemaker at Clos Manou – tells me. “You say you want to be a winemaker, but it is complicated. Our advantage, however, was being able to do exactly what we wanted.” Over the last 25 years, he and his wife Françoise have slowly grown their tiny estate in the northern reaches of the Médoc, beyond Saint-Estèphe, where they make wine that offers some of the best value in the region.  Saint-Christoly-Médoc – the miniscule village that is home to their domaine – is where Stéphane grew up, while Françoise is from less than 15km away. Although Françoise’s family had vines, neither she nor Stéphane were working in the production side of the business, but they fell in love with wine. Via his brothers-in-law – who worked at Ch. Mouton Rothschild and Ch. Rauzan-Sègla – Stéphane started tasting some special wines, buying older vintages at auction – and was soon determined to give it a go himself.  Together, the couple bought a mere 12 ares and produced their first vintage in 1998, 600 bottles that they labelled as Clos Manou – “Clos” because they felt it wasn’t grand enough to use “Château”, and “Manou”, Stéphane’s nickname. It was such a success that their hobby rapidly became a full-time gig and the duo left their day jobs in 2000.  In some ways it doesn’t sound like they were doing anything remarkable. They wanted to make attractive wines that reflected their site, and to do so with precision and care. Their ambitions were modest. And yet, for Bordeaux, their small-scale, hand-crafted approach was – and is – atypical.  They sought out specific parcels of old vines, those planted before clonal material became commonplace, favouring the natural complexity of massal selection. They chose to work only with high-density vineyards – around 10,000 vines per hectare, a point at which Stéphane feels the vines self-regulate, meaning there’s no need to green harvest and often less de-leafing required.  In principle, they are close to organic – however, in a bid to avoid dependency on copper, they use bio-controls that aren’t permitted under organics, specifically phosphonic acid. They don’t use any herbicides, insecticides or chemicals – but believe that copper, as a heavy metal that kills soil’s microbiome, is best used minimally, and they prefer to use something that doesn’t leave trace levels in the final wine.   Almost everything is done by hand, with 12 full-time employees working on the estate. There are no protocols or routines. “We do things by watching, observing our vines and drawing conclusions and echoing those conclusions the following year,” Stéphane says.  The 2003 vintage was a turning point. Robert Parker gave the wine 93 points – an incredible score for such a modest Médoc, writing that it was “better than many of the vintage’s ‘big’ names”, “drop-dead-gorgeous” and a “prodigious effort”. Given the critic was at his peak, his influence was significant – and suddenly Clos Manou was in enormous demand.  “C’est notre métier, mais notre passion aussi," Stéphane says – “It’s our profession, but it’s our passion too." That explains perhaps why, for 11 years, he didn’t take a day off. “My wife wasn’t very happy with me,” Stéphane tells me, laughing cheekily.   Today they have 18.5 hectares of vines, scattered between Saint-Christoly-Médoc and Couquèques, all within a three-kilometre radius. They sit across three different soil types – gravel over clay, limestone-clay and sand, with some sitting very close to the estuary itself. Stéphane thinks of them as three children – one of which, the gravel over clay, is naturally gifted. But just because the other two need a bit more work, doesn’t mean they are any lesser. There is, he says, no such thing as “un petit terroir”. One special parcel dates back to 1850. Planted before phylloxera swept through the region, it’s managed to survive thanks to its sandy soils. In certain vintages they make a special “Cuvée 1850” from the block.  Despite the vines averaging 45 years in age, the yields are generally good – sitting at around 50hl/ha. Stéphane emphasises that low yields don’t equate to better quality, necessarily – the balance of your vines is what matters most.  It’s undeniable that climate change has been a benefit here, beyond Saint-Estèphe, where once it was a struggle to ripen fruit. In 2018, Clos Manou had 15% alcohol – but, thanks to their clay soils, the pH was a vibrant 3.52, bringing great freshness to balance the wine. He’s still thinking about the long-term impact of the rising mercury, however, and experimenting with small portions of whole-bunch, inspired by the likes of Guillaume Pouthier at Les Carmes Haut-Brion. Stéphane feels that it can add tension and make the wines feel more dynamic, even on just 5% of the blend. “On est des vrais vignerons – comme il y a en Bourgogne," Stéphane tells me ("We are true vignerons – as there are in Burgundy"). Unlike larger properties where there are various directors who influence decisions – it’s just them deciding what to do. Despite looking further afield for their inspiration, he and Françoise don’t want to go against the grain of the region. “We want to be a bit unorthodox, but we are nevertheless Bordelais,” he says.  Clos Manou is, in essence, a family business. There’s nothing remarkable about their modest ways, but their freedom to start with a blank page has allowed them to create something that is no longer the norm. Inspired by the Bordeaux of yesteryear, everything is low-tech yet done with great precision. The wines are fresh and pure, yet distinctly savoury and earthy – with a natural intensity that points to their old vines. You can see the addition of larger oak and amphorae in more recent vintages, bringing more vibrancy. They are somehow rustic yet fine. Little has changed here since 1998; let’s hope that that remains the case, and the Dief family continue to craft humble expressions of Bordeaux that are very much extraordinary.  Browse all listings of Clos Manou or read more about Bordeaux 

At first glance, Clos Manou might seem run-of-the-mill. But this small estate in the Médoc is far from it. We sat down with Stéphane Dief to talk about how a hobby became his life, the freedom of a fresh start, and why his family’s wines are worth seeking out

We talk to Stephane Dief about his family estate in the Medoc, Clos Manou – one of Bordeaux’s best-value wines and best-kept secrets

Why Clos Manou is anything but ordinary

Anything but ordinary: Clos Manou

“I can die happy now,” Jon Bonné chuckles to me. The writer spent almost a decade as the wine guy at The San Francisco Chronicle, and is now Managing Editor at Resy, having spent time at Punch, writing for Noble Rot, Decanter and many more in between. His latest book, The New French Wine, was released earlier this year and The New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov dedicated an entire column to singing its praises – something he almost never does.  The hefty, two-part tome has been a long time in the making – almost a decade, in fact. The idea was a frivolous suggestion, casually agreed to over one too many drinks (“unsulphured Gamay in Oakland – as one does”) with his editor in 2014, soon after the publication of his seminal The New California Wine. But what was conceived as part of his quest for “the next thing”, to build on the momentum of his first book, rapidly spiralled.  “It's very hard to see a bigger picture of French wine because it is so overwhelming,” Bonné tells me over Zoom. Initially he’d envisaged a few trips, a project that would take a couple of years – but it “kept growing and growing and growing”.  “There was this much bigger story that I was sort of stumbling into,” the writer says. He gradually realised that there was an “enormous meta transformation” taking place across France – and this is what the book wrestles with. As he writes in the book’s introduction, “I imagined the new French wine would be about the undiscovered country – the cracks between known places.” But as he soon discovered, the new French wine was everywhere – and it took him nine years to piece it all together.   The work is split into two separate books – The Narrative and The Producers, the former the story behind the reference guide that forms the latter. The Narrative is a deep dive into the face of France and its winegrowing today, broken down by region, with break-out essays on topics such as natural wine, farming and the appellation system. It’s a rich tapestry of stories, interjected with the frank and striking photography of Susannah Ireland and occasional illustrated map by Francesco Bongiorni, reminiscent of Art Deco postcards.  For Bonné, the “new France” is about postmodernism, about “wilful rejections of the b******t of the past”. It’s about a (re)focus on site, about producers seizing their destiny and hunting for a more sustainable approach – in the vineyard, winery and beyond – although it’s far from that simple. “To understand French wine and to love it, you simply have to embrace its messy, self-contradictory, and, yes, complicated postmodern reality,” he writes. He points to Muscadet and Beaujolais as two of the most exciting and representative regions of this movement – both having entirely reinvented themselves within a generation. Producers here, he tells me, are “doing the work and focusing on terroir and technique and farming”, while Champagne “has completely transformed its vision of what its wine should be”.  Change is most importantly, however, “an inclusive force” – and looking at who did (and didn’t) make it into The Producers, Bonné’s definitive gazetteer of the nation’s movers and shakers, shines a light on this. It’s not a list of the vignerons he loves, it’s a pain-staking selection of those he deems significant and meaningful in the context of the movement – encompassing both more traditional names and those on the fringes. Take the Bordeaux chapter; you’ll find Pétrus, Lafleur and Pontet-Canet, as well as many less conventional, smaller and often natural-leaning properties such as Clos 19 Bis or Ch. Julia – with “Benchmarks” and the more up-and-coming “Names to Know” highlighted.  It’s fascinating – and fun – to see these two, seemingly opposing strands of France’s wine scene woven together. When I queried the inclusion of these elder statesmen of French wine, he highlighted how, for him, Pontet-Canet perfectly exemplifies the change in France today, with the forward-thinking Tesseron family handing the keys to previous cellar master Jean-Michel Comme to do “radical, radical s**t”.  Bonné deliberately chooses to champion those who have revved the engine of broader revolution – and those who reflect that revolution’s values. When it comes to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, for example, he describes how they “upheld the moral pillars of Burgundy and winemaking” and “use their power for good”; whereas one top Pauillac estate he vehemently tells me is “perpetuating the worst practices of the Bordeaux trade”. For him, “wine is a consumable” and, as 21st-century consumers, “people have a right to explore the values of producers”.   While Bonné certainly likes natural wine – and many of the movement’s figureheads feature in the book, he is far from an evangelist. When he first started thinking about the book, natural wine was different; “It hadn’t quite catalysed into this very specific cultural beast,” he says, a cultural beast born in Hackney, Bushwick or Paris’s 11th. He talks about the movement’s “sense of tragic fashion” and how, with its clique-y nature, it has “baked in its own expiration date”. There were, he tells me, producers that didn’t make the cut – those who act as a “cautionary tale” for natural wine. “There are wines that can be delicate to being transported. And then there are wines that are just f***ed up at the source,” he says frankly.   His outlook is broadly positive for France, the nation’s ongoing revolution and its vignerons, but the book also acts as a call to arms of sorts, for: “The enforcers of the old ways will be forced to adapt, or they will perish,” he writes.  It’s not a perfect book. With a work of this size (over 860 pages and 600,000 words), it is almost inevitably slightly out of date by the time it is printed – especially with the pace of change today. Lafleur’s entry, for example, talks of Acte but not Les Perrières. I’d also have loved to have captions for each of Susannah Ireland’s images, knowing where – and of whom – they were taken. But these are quibbles.   I can’t pretend to be unbiased. Bonné is one of my favourite wine writers. There’s a lightness to his phrasing, with dry humour and a palate that I tend to identify with – although I’d argue he’s become a little more funk-friendly over the years. His writing is intelligent without being arduous. Perhaps it’s because, like Andrew Jefford, he was and is a journalist first. What really fills his writing is a sense of joy, of almost gluttony – it’s still filled with the excitement that so many wine writers seem to lose, as they tire of bottle after bottle of exceptional wine. He’s still easily absorbed by the stories that make each one different. For me, he doesn’t fit neatly into the critic box, even though it’s a term he uses to describe himself repeatedly in our conversation. “The notion of a critic has devolved to a place where you are simply handing out numbers,” he explains, but to him his work is about “criticism at a deeper level”. It’s about “being able to dive into the culture and come away with the insights and interpretation, and explain why certain wines really do matter”.  And it is this that makes The New French Wine stand apart. It isn’t just a wine book; wine is the lens through which Bonné observes a broader cultural shift. Whether you agree with everything he says or not, it’s a joy to read, hold and look at. It’s a book that will prompt conversation, prompt you to uncork bottles, prompt you to consider quite how complicated – and endlessly fascinating – France’s wine scene is. And is there anything more French than that?  The New French Wine: Redefining the World’s Greatest Wine Culture (Ten Speed Press) is out now.  Read more Editorial 

Ten years after The New California Wine was published, Jon Bonné has published a new book – an epic tale of France’s revolution. Sophie Thorpe caught up with the author to talk about his ambitious project to capture The New French Wine

We sit down with Jon Bonne, the wine writer and author of The New French Wine, to find out more about his second book

Writer Jon Bonne on The New French Wine

Facing up to The New French Wine: Jon Bonné

Schrader Cellars is one of Napa’s most decorated producers. The estate’s approach of pairing specific clones with the perfect site to produce the ultimate expression of Napa Cabernet has made it a critics’ darling – and the property is behind some of the most coveted fine wines on the market. To date, Schrader has received an astounding 35 100-point scores.  Schrader Cellers founder Fred Schrader and the estate’s winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown are huge fans of the To Kalon vineyard in Napa’s Oakville and much of the production from Schrader is concentrated on this single site, such is the obsession with the place and conviction in its quality.   To Kalon is home to some of Napa’s oldest vines and best Cabernet Sauvignon. There are more 100-point wines to originate from this vineyard than any other on the planet and many famous names have built their reputation on it. Schrader bottles different clones of Cabernet Sauvignon from this site, highlighting the nuance and personality that Napa Cabernet can achieve.  Stylistically, Schrader’s wines are immense, opulent and plushly textured, underpinned by elegant power. Schrader is high-octane Napa at its finest. It is immediately clear tasting through the range that these are precise wines. High alcohol, high levels of oak, high levels of concentration are all potential red flags when it comes to wine faults (these wines being much more volatile), but these Schrader bottlings are as clean as a whistle.   With a total production of just 2,500 to 4,000 cases each year, this is meticulous winemaking at its finest. It means winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown and his team can keep these high-octane wines protected from potential faults throughout fermentation and élevage, never losing the fruit clarity that so clearly defines these wines.  RBS is made entirely from the Cabernet Clone 337 from Beckstoffer To Kalon. Jason Smith – Schrader’s in-house Master Sommelier – explains that this clone is their most fruit-driven; it can achieve phenomenal levels of ripeness and is known for its bright, fruit-forward style. Tasting the 2017, the wine is super intense, though the power is measured, pulsing with energy that builds beautifully on the palate. The purity of fruit is impressive and the fruit flavours mesh so well with the new oak tones, while a distinct red fruit character dominates. It is beautifully balanced, despite its opulence. Due to Clone 337’s natural style, it spends less time in new oak – around 18-19 months.  CCS is made from Clone 4 Cabernet – also known as the Mendoza clone – in To Kalon. Clone 4 is known for its density on the mid-palate and is much more tannic and extracted than the RBS. The wine really does have a denser core and more intensity compared to Clone 337. The fruit character is also darker and much more brooding. The 2018 still has more to give and is a little clenched at the moment. The warmer 2018 vintage also would potentially emphasise that, but this is also the characteristic of the clone, built for longer ageing.  The Heritage Clone cuvée is made with Clone 31 – the original clone planted by Robert Mondavi in To Kalon. The 2019 is a breath-taking wine. This is perhaps partly due to 2019 being an incredibly expressive vintage, but what is most notable is how the intensity is matched by overriding freshness. The balance of concentration and acidity from Clone 31 (at least in this vintage) really gives the wine a distinct character. It is stunning – and the length is really quite something. Old Sparky is Schrader’s top cuvée – a mix of Fred Schrader’s favourite blocks from To Kalon curated and blended differently each year. To taste the 2012 out of magnum, a wine now with some bottle age, was a rare treat, but also confirmed the precision at work at Schrader. After 10 years in bottle the wine has fully unfurled, the tannins bring structure but are open-knit. The depth is extraordinary. There are the first signs of tertiary development but the aromas are still so pure. It is a heavenly bottle and such is its balance that it is going to age effortlessly, but why resist this any longer, it is perfect now.   Contrasting the three clonal wines side by side, it is undeniable that each of the wines have quite different personalities considering they are all Cabernet from the same vineyard and made by the same winemaker. When it comes to personality, the Heritage Clone bottling really stands out, but matches the other bottlings for its plushness and amazing fruit clarity. Old Sparky, as a blend of clones, also shows how well they can work together. Understanding the effects different clones have on wine flavour, structure, concentration and ageing potential is one more aspect to a wine’s make-up that, while not often so publicly addressed as with Schrader’s bottlings, has played an instrumental part over the last 20 years in building fine wine’s complexity.  The latest vintage from Schrader is released each autumn. Find out more about the estate and browse all current listings of back-vintages, or read more about California 

Top Napa estate Schrader Cellars has championed the use of individual clones of Cabernet Sauvignon in its quest for quality. Tasting through the range with the property’s own Master Sommelier Jason Smith, we explore how these pioneering wines have won the hearts of oenophiles around the world

Talking to Master Sommelier Jason Smith about Schrader Cellars’ use of single-clone To Kalon Cabernet Sauvignon to make the finest Napa wine

Clonal Cabernet Sauvignon with Schrader Cellars

Talking clonal Cabernet with Schrader Cellars

Following on from the cooler, elegant 2018 vintage, 2019 is another excellent year for Napa – together forming an impressive duo that will be enjoyed (and inevitably compared) over the coming decades.  The preceding winter was wet, replenishing the water table and encouraging vigorous early growth. Indeed, as Danielle Aita at Colgin noted, it was still raining in May – with almost 2.5 inches that month (compared to 0.3 inches in 2018, and 0.61 in 2020). It was important for this vigour to be managed, for vines were at risk of growing more fruit than they could ripen. Aita explained how their team had to thin even more than normal, even thinning clusters by removing individual berries to maximise airflow.  A mild spring led to a warm and even summer, with few heat spikes, allowing producers to take their time to harvest, allowing for traditionally long hangtime. Although the season didn’t see the extremes of 2020 or 2022, the mercury did fluctuate, Kassidy Harris at Dominus noted – with a hot June, cooler July, then warmer end to the season. She noted how it required more intervention from the team in the vineyard, managing yield – particularly dropping “wings” or “shoulders” off clusters. This prolonged, relatively gentle heat, as the Dana team highlighted, mellowed the acidity and brought a roundness to the wines.   For Cathy Corison, it was “a fabulous vintage – almost perfect”, and one major factor was the even temperatures, with a significant diurnal shift that encouraged aromatic finesse and retained freshness. She reported temperatures in August that were 21-27˚C during the day, and dipping below 10˚C at night. With these gentle conditions, she picked later than normal, in the third week of September.  Maya Dalla Valle started picking around the same time, emphasising how it’s the last vintage she can remember being able to take her time with – the harvest stretching over several weeks rather than needing to get the fruit in as soon as possible. Aita highlighted how in early October, the temperature dropped significantly at night, slowing the ripening, and they picked in the second and third week of the month.   Temperatures were, on average, a little higher than 2018 – leading to a richer style, darker fruit profile and softer tannin structure – wines that are more classically Napa, compared to 2018’s slight Old World slant. They still, however, have a vibrancy and freshness, and while alcohol levels are higher than 2018, they are not elevated for the region, with almost all sitting below 15%. Volumes are generally good, thanks to that wet winter, a comfort given the low yields of 2020 and 2021.  As Corison noted, “When a vintage is perfect, it’s like falling off a log. Great grapes make great wine.” The winemaker’s job in a vintage like 2022, she says, is to “try not to mess it up”. Dalla Valle opted for shorter maceration times, finding the ripe, thick-skinned grapes offered tannin, colour and flavour quickly. She notes how the wines have filled out with time, offering a “quiet power” that she loves. For Harris at Dominus, it’s a very good vintage, but just an edge behind 2018, not quite as integrated in her view.  Will Harlan and Cory Empting at Promontory compare it to 1990, feeling it has more flesh and power versus 2018, needing time to reveal itself – “an old soul” of a vintage. For Aita at Colgin, the wines have minerality and real expression of place. They are much more approachable than 2018 in their youth, yet have everything needed to go the distance.  The critics all agree that it’s another very good vintage, but are divided as to whether they prefer 2018 or 2019. For Vinous’s Antonio Galloni, the 2019s are “big, bold wines that show the extroverted side of Napa Valley”. He feels it doesn’t quite have the consistency of a truly great year, such as 2018, with that vintage also offering a little more freshness that he prefers.   Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW (then still writing for the Wine Advocate) finds 2019 “classic, ripe, plush and beautifully expressive”, feeling – unlike Galloni – that it is more consistent than 2018, both in quality and volumes. For her, the 2018s are more structured with higher acidity, and may well age longer than the 2019s, however the 2019s have a generosity that is more typically Napa – and possibly more inviting.  For Jeb Dunnuck, it’s "another terrific year“ for Napa – “ripe, supple tannins, beautiful sweetness of fruit, and undeniably delicious”. He argues that it is clearly an excellent vintage, but doesn’t quite reach the levels of 2016 or 2013. The vintage in brief A wet winter and long, gentle growing season without major heat spikes High yields and quality, with a prolonged harvest period Warmer than 2018 producing richer wines with darker fruit and softer tannins Wines that are classical Napa Polished and plush, yet with freshness and alcohol levels generally sitting below 15%  Browse all 2019 Napa listings or read more about California

The 2019 vintage in Napa produced a brace of fantastic wines that are classical expressions of California’s heartland. We talk to top producers about the year and the style of wines it produced

Discover the 2019 Napa wines – talking to top producers about a plush and polished vintage, full of classically styled wines for the region