Los Carneros

It's tough to have a much longer trip, at least by distance as compared to time in Napa Valley than from Howell Mountain to the Los Carneros American Viticultural Area (AVA). In fact, this morning we are going from near the far northeast corner of Napa Valley to the AVA that is so far in the southwest corner that is actually the only AVA that sits in both Napa and Sonoma Counties.

Once we get down the mountain though, the ride is actually pretty easy. Head west to Highway 29, go mostly south for nearly 20 miles until we almost run into San Pablo Bay and then go west on Highway 12 until we find our destination. 

We bring up San Pablo Bay for a reason. From a wine standpoint, it serves the purpose of cooling the Los Carneros AVA. Unlike most of the Napa Valley AVAs near it, Los Carneros does not have hot summers. If there is a day when the temperature exceeds 80 degrees, even during the last few summers, that is unusually hot. And, with the cooling morning fog coming off the bay, these are not the right conditions to grow the same grapes as are grown in much of the rest of Napa. These conditions are much more like those in Willammette Valley, Oregon, or even in Burgundy. And, that's why the grapes that are grown here much more closely resemble the ones in those regions.

The Los Carneros AVA has an interesting history. It first applied for AVA status in 1979, even before the larger Napa Valley AVA received its designation. And, unlike all of the other AVAs in the area and perhaps any others in the country, it was designated not based on a nicely packaged geography, but instead based on climate. Essentially, Los Carneros consists of those areas where grapes are grown that are heavily (whatever that means) influenced by the cooling breezes from San Pablo Bay.

Once Los Carneros got off the ground, it almost perished before it established itself. It was in the early 1980s that the American Chardonnay boom truly started. It was also in the early 1980s that phylloxera attacked Los Carneros. To fight that nasty mite, the large majority of the vines in Los Caneros were replanted on phylloxera-resistant rootstock and when that was done, many used recently bred disease-resistant Burgundian clones.

Perhaps the biggest problem that vintners in Los Carneros face currently is that horrible soil there. It's almost uniformly a shallow clay that provides for poor drainiage and frankly low levels of fertility. So, the key is to find ways to extend the growing season and therefore the hang time to produce more vibrant flavors. 

When buying wines from Los Carneros, look growing seasons in which there was no September rainfall. This lack of rain allows the vintners to let the grapes stay on the vines longer producing those richer flavors.


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