Napa mountain wineries worth the work

Tim Teichgraeber - Special To The Star Tribune - May 20, 2004

The Mayacamas and Vaca mountain ranges that line the east and west borders of Napa Valley look virtually uninhabited from the valley floor, where tourists buzz from tasting room to tasting room. Those with a good map and enough intestinal fortitude to stomach the winding climb of a mountain road will find many of the region's best wineries at higher altitudes, hidden behind anonymous mailboxes and thick banks of towering pine and madrone trees.

Mount Veeder, Spring Mountain, Diamond Mountain, Atlas Peak and Howell Mountain are some of the most important wine districts of Napa Valley. They produce small quantities of wine, primarily cabernet sauvignon, but their wines are revered by winemakers. Tourists seldom venture up into the mountains to visit the small wineries, and many offer tastings by appointment only. They can be hard to find, even with a good map.

But for those in the know, those who have called ahead and those with a serious craving for first-class cabernet, the mountains of Napa Valley are places worthy of a pilgrimage.

It is notoriously difficult to establish and farm mountainside vineyards. Napa's mountains are densely forested, so clearing the land is not an easy -- or cheap -- task. Even if one can manage to secure the necessary permits to plant a vineyard -- and that is a big "if" that gets bigger every day -- local regulations require that you leave a substantial portion of the property undeveloped in order to control erosion and retain part of the native ecosystem.

Once the vineyards are planted, the steep slopes are inhospitable to heavy machinery. Almost all of the vineyard work, from vine pruning to harvesting, must be done by hand. Mountain vineyards are not for the faint of heart.

Those who do opt for mountain ranches do so out of a conviction that grapes grown on the mountainsides and less steep benchlands at the feet of the mountains are superior to grapes from the valley floor.

The superiority of mountain grapes is a theory that's very popular among winemakers, growers and critics. The gist is that mountain vineyards produce more complex fruit naturally, with less human manipulation. The reason mountain vineyards produce better grapes has mainly to do with the relative thinness and infertility of mountain soil.

Growing good grapes for wine, as opposed to growing table grapes, requires exposing the vines to stress - depriving them of food and water. Grape vines in fertile soil tend to produce big grapes full of water with light, thin skins and simple flavors. Grapes grown in rich soil with plenty of water are perfect for eating as fresh fruit.

Grapes grown in lean, rocky soils with little water give small, blueberry-size grapes that are thick skinned, deeply colored and have complex flavors and plenty of tannin, which all make for better wine.

Rich topsoil tends to wash down off the mountains and settle in the valley as sediment. Over time, the valley floor develops a thick carpet of fertile sedimentary soil, while the mountainsides are left with thin rocky soils. Vines planted on the mountainsides in thinner soils that hold less water produce less fruit, but the intense fruit is better for producing the rich, amped-up wines that are popular today.

Growers on the valley floor often manipulate their vines to coax them into producing more concentrated grapes. Cabernet sauvignon vines planted on the Napa Valley floor might produce 5 or 6 tons of grapes per acre if left to their own devices. Growers or vintners who want to make great wines on the valley floor will "green harvest," or cut out some of the undeveloped fruit partway through the growing season to nurture a smaller harvest of 3 tons of grapes with more intense, bolder flavors.

Vines planted on the thin, rocky soils of mountainsides generally yield less than 3 tons per acre without green harvesting, and sometimes produce as little as 1 ton of grapes per acre. The grapes themselves also are smaller, so there is more skin relative to the pulp of each grape. Since much of the flavor, all of the color and all of the bitter antioxidant tannins come from the skins of the grapes, the small berries of mountain fruit tend to produce deeply colored wine with intense aromas and flavors as well as tough tannins that need more time to soften.

Valley floor vineyards receive steady sun exposure throughout the day; sloped mountain vineyards receive very different patterns of sunlight depending on which way the slope faces. Vineyards facing south and west tend to receive more intense sunlight and ripen earlier. Northern- and eastern-facing slopes ripen more gradually and are harvested later. A mountain winery with vineyards facing only one or two directions may be more vulnerable to quirks in weather patterns, resulting in greater vintage variation. On the other hand, a mountain winery with several vineyards facing different directions can blend wine from different vineyard blocks to make wine with a range of flavor characteristics.

Mountain vineyards might produce only one-fifth the fruit (and wine) of a valley floor vineyard, so it's easy to see why an economist would prefer the business plan of a valley floor winery. Connoisseurs, though, often prefer mountain wines.
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