The Glory of Napa’s Grapes: Guest Blogger David Thompson

The Napa Valley encompasses a rather small geographical area, produces only four percent of California’s entire wine production and is one of the premium wine growing regions in North America. The earliest vineyards date back to 1836 and the oldest winery is from 1861. The valley itself is only thirty miles long and several miles wide. However there is a huge range of micro-climates, temperatures, elevation and soil types within this small region.

David Thompson founded the Napa Wine Project

The southern part of the valley is close to the cooling influences of the San Pablo Bay (fog and wind) and dictates the types of varietals grown here – commonly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. However the north part of the valley is much warmer during the growing season and red varietals are grown here – including Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

Two primary mountain ranges run the length of the valley – the Vaca range on the eastern side of the valley and the Mayacamas range on the western side. There is large diversity of soil types within this small valley – thirty-three different soil types exist.

Vineyard elevations range from next to sea level to about 2,400 feet. This small wine region is world famous for the quality of wines it produces and is visited by more than 4.5 million people each year.

It is sometimes rare to have premium restaurants in a rural region, but the Napa Valley is also well known for its top restaurants, in 2011 boasting fourteen Michelin stars, of which two restaurants have three stars each.

Napa is home to approximately 420 physical bonded wineries and another approximately 450 virtual wineries (wineries that make their wine at someone else’s winery and may not own vineyards – rather purchase grapes).

The Napa Valley sometimes gets a bad rap for being too high class or pretentious – but nothing could be further from the truth – especially if you take some time to explore this beautiful region. There are a few larger wineries that get much of the publicity – but by numbers, ninety-five percent of the producers in the Napa Valley are small (under 1000 cases) and are family owned.

You can visit the Napa Valley anytime of the year (wineries stay open year round). However, I recommend visiting in Spring or Fall. Fall is a fun and absolutely crazy time to be in the valley (especially if you are in the industry).

There is an air of excitement in the Napa area that you can only have during harvest time; loaded trucks with bins of grapes are flying down the roads to winery facilities, barrels and tanks are constantly moving around, walk into a wine lab and smell the unmistakable odor of yeast, enology & viticulture consultants find that their cell phones are invariably an extension of their head, and around the wineries, you can smell the awesome sweet smell of grapes and fermenting juice.

During Spring, in the middle of the week, everything is green, bud break has already occurred, the grapes are leafing out, the summer crowds have not yet hit, and as a result there is less traffic and the weather is usually decent.

Nearly six years ago, I started the Napa Wine Project – www.napawineproject.com. I wanted to create a unique project on a large scale and decided to try and review all wineries in Napa by personally visiting them, meeting the owners if possible and tasting the wines (670+ visits, tastings & reviews to date).

I chose Napa because of its excellent International reputation and its wine regions are fairly easy to understand as they are well defined along a small valley surrounded by hillsides.

Over time I have explored many of the off the beaten path wineries, individual appellations (wine regions within Napa Valley), met with some very interesting people from all walks of life, tasted some stellar wines and certainly increased my own knowledge of all aspects of the wine industry. In the process I hope I’ve created a resource that is valuable for both consumers and the trade.