2012 & 2013 Napa Valley: Too Close to Call

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | MAY 09, 2024

The 2012 and 2013 vintages are among the best in recent memory. Both were met with considerable acclaim. Now that the wines have passed their tenth birthdays, it’s time to look back and see how things have shaped up, to examine which wines met or exceeded expectations and which did not.

This article is the result of two tastings over the last 18 months. I tasted the 2012s back in the fall of 2022. At the time, I planned to publish a ten-year retrospective in early 2023. Josh Raynolds’ passing early last year was an enormous shock to our company and to me personally. By the time we began to recover, the office was full of new releases, so I moved several articles to the back burner, including this one. As the fall of 2023 came around, I started tasting the 2013s and decided to publish reviews of the 2013s and 2012s together. My goal was to cover both vintages for most estates, but some are represented in only one, mainly because of scheduling challenges. Hopefully, regularly scheduled ten-year retrospectives will continue this year. As for the wines, 2013 versus 2012 is too close to call. It’s really a producer-by-producer and wine-by-wine discussion at this lofty level. I find plenty to admire in both vintages.

2013: A Modern-Day Classic, Revisited

Two-thousand thirteen is a special vintage for Napa Valley. “The second year in the current drought cycle and precocious growing season produced powerful, inky wines with huge fruit, massive tannins and, most importantly, extraordinary pedigree,” I wrote in my article 2013 Napa Valley: Once Upon a Time in America…, which was published in October 2015. That’s pretty much how the wines come across today.

When I tasted the 2013s for the first time from barrel, in the fall of 2014, many winemakers commented that the wines extracted easily, so the challenge was to avoid excessively rich, hugely tannic wines. I found many 2013s showing more overt ripeness and stronger oak character than when they were young wines. That may be a factor in how the wines have evolved. But something else is also at play. I revisited the 2013s at the same time I tasted the 2021s. Comparisons were quite telling and informative, as the two vintages share some similarities, most notably drought conditions and low yields. Next to the 2021s, the 2013s come across as pretty bombastic. The reality is that today, we are increasingly becoming accustomed to Napa Valley wines made in a style that focuses on freshness and energy more than in the past. To think this stylistic evolution happened within a decade is truly remarkable. But that is the pace of change in many industries, including wine. As rich and potent as the wines are, 2013 is a vintage to start drinking now. The best wines will continue to mature positively, but I also tasted some 2013s that are starting to fall apart at the seams.