Vintage Retrospective: The 1999 Napa Valley
CabernetsBY STEPHEN TANZER | MAY 9, 2019&nbsp; Nineteen ninety-nine was the
middle year of a trio of cooler Napa Valley vintages, but from the start this
vintage struck me as superior to both 1998 and 2000, with the wines showing
greater density and structure, not to mention ripeness. There have been a few truly
cool vintages on California’s North Coast since then, but these are now rare
events. In fact, some growers insist that global warming first made itself felt
in California in 2001—and unless you’re still in denial, there’s no reason to
believe that temperatures are going to moderate any decade soon.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1557439107759-Togni_option1_copy.jpg"> The Philip Togni vineyard, perched atop Spring MountainAnother Cool Growing Season, But Not a Repeat of ’98 

The El Niño year of ’98 began
with very heavy January and February rainfall, an average March and an
unusually wet and cool April and May, which led to a poor, very late fruit set.
The summer remained cool and the harvest took place late, with red Bordeaux
varieties picked mostly during the month of October, and with some rainfall
providing challenges. It is a difficult vintage for finding wines without a
distinct pyrazine character (i.e., bell pepper or other green notes—even
asparagus—that are normally found in higher proportions in Bordeaux grapes than
in most other varieties). But the most successful ‘98s have held up well and
their initial savory herbal notes have integrated nicely, in a claret-like way.

Growers expected a repeat of ’98
in 1999. Winter and early spring were again cooler than average, with rainfall
extending through late April—but far less copious during January and February and,
except for a few rogue showers, not continuing into May, as in ’98. The bud break and flowering were later than
average and in many instances drawn out. In fact, in most sites the Cabernet
Sauvignon in Napa Valley flowered even later than it had the previous year,
well into June. Once again, June, July, August and most of September were cooler
than average, with only a couple of brief heat spikes in mid-July and late
August. But in this La Niña growing season, fortunately, this period was
bone-dry. Still, for the second straight year, the harvest would be late and
growers feared that it would be a challenge to get their fruit ripe.

Happily, an unusually hot last
week of September, which played havoc with earlier-ripening grapes like Pinot
Noir, gave the Cabernet a boost. As the summer and early fall were dry, the
fruit came in clean. And the long hang time without extreme heat meant that
grape sugars mounted slowly as phenolic ripeness increased, and the grapes
mostly retained sound levels of natural acidity. Except for the Sauvignon Blanc and the earlier Chardonnay, nearly all
of the harvest took place during the last few days of September and the month
of October, under much better conditions than in 1998.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1557437401330-spottswoode+cellar-copy.jpg"> The barrel room at&nbsp;Spottswoode, St. Helena 

The 1999s Then and Now

From the start, 1999 struck me as
a rather European style of vintage for California. When I first tasted these
wines from barrel in early 2001, some winemakers described them as quite firmly
structured, if not austere, owing in large part to a high proportion of skins
to juice following the dry summer and late-September heat spike. They also
expressed concern that their regular clients would find the wines tough going,
or a bit green in the case of wines that showed obvious pyrazine character. (Some
risk-averse growers may have picked too early, for fear that early-autumn
rainfall would compromise their fruit.) The early reviews, especially by West
Coast critics, were cautious. But the better young ‘99s displayed the perfume,
density and tightly coiled spine of acidity to support a graceful evolution in
bottle—or so I wrote at the time of their release. And a solid minority of
producers similarly were enthusiastic about the vintage from the beginning.

My tastings in March, nearly 20
years after the harvest of ’99, did indeed turn up some splendid wines, as well
as some pleasant surprises. If I still don’t rate the vintage quite as high
overall for Cabernet as wines from more classic warmer—but not
roasting-hot—Napa years with more even ripeness, it’s still an excellent
vintage. Only a handful of the ‘99s I tasted in March failed to rate at least
85 points, which is my cutoff for a “recommended” wine. The poor ones were mostly
oxidative and in decline, excessively green and angular owing to incomplete
ripeness, or simply too rustic to enjoy. Some wines showed porty or dehydrated
fruit qualities, suggesting fruit that was harvested too late in search of
ever-more hang time.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1557438248466-Some+%2799s+in+fine+form_copy.jpg"> 

The typically firm acidity of the
‘99s has mostly permitted excellent fruit retention. The ‘99s as a group are
evolving slowly (once again, most of the better examples were consumed too
early), and the wines appear to have greater longevity than the ‘97s, for
example, which I tasted en masse two
years ago. Equally important, 1999 is a vintage whose cool side brought a full
range of aromas, not just of varietal fruits but some interesting soil-driven
mineral and floral tones and nuances of tobacco leaf, mint or black olive. The
‘99s are rarely plush or opulent in the style of much warmer vintages with
greater ripeness; rather they are mostly midweight wines and quite stylish—yes,
in a Bordeaux-like direction.You Might Also Enjoy <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/lail-vineyards-j-daniel-cuvee-1997-2016-may-2019">Lail Vineyards J. Daniel Cuvée: 1997-2016</a>, Stephen Tanzer, May 2019<div><a target="_blank" href="https://www.vinous.com/articles/vertical-tasting-of-beaulieu-vineyard-s-georges-de-latour-private-reserve-cabernet-sauvignon-apr-2019">Beaulieu’s Georges de Latour Private Reserve: 1965–2016</a>, Stephen Tanzer, April 2019<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/dunn-cabernet-sauvignon-howell-mountain-vertical-1979-2014-aug-2018">Dunn Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Vertical: 1979 – 2014</a>, Stephen Tanzer, August 2018<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/vintage-retrospective-1991-napa-valley-cabernet-jul-2018">Vintage Retrospective: 1991 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon</a>, Stephen Tanzer, July 2018 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/williams-selyem-pinot-noir-allen-vineyard-1987-2016-jun-2018">Williams Selyem: Pinot Noir Allen Vineyard 1987–2016</a>, Stephen Tanzer, June 2018 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/turley-zinfandel-hayne-vineyard-1993-2015-may-2018">Turley Zinfandel Hayne Vineyard: 1993 – 2015</a>, Stephen Tanzer, May 2018</div>

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