Reckoning and Hope in Napa and Sonoma

The fog is dense over Santa Rosa and my eyelids are heavy from the restless sleep of the night before. Armed with a pair of flat whites and good conversation, my dear friend Cole and I set out on the journey toward Pritchard Hill on the eastern slopes of Napa Valley, bemused for the seemingly millionth time how long the drive is between the hearts of Sonoma and Napa.

It's a strange time in northern California wine country, and nobody has the same answer for the reckoning that began a handful of years ago. Amidst the din of tasting rooms, you can hear hosts quietly naming familiar bogeymen––"Gen Z"; "the economy"; "COVID." After panic that fires and extreme heat would be the new norm in California wine country, winemakers have been blessed by a hat trick of incredible vintages that promise to create terrific wines from among the most exceptional places for viticulture in the world; yet the atmosphere––the vibe––doesn't match the potential.

Emerging over the crest of the Mayacamas, we leave the last of the fog behind. Even from this distance, Napa is glowing––the late morning sun magnifies the canary yellow of the changing leaves in the vineyards below, nearly blinding in its intensity. My favorite stretch of Highway 29 between Calistoga and St. Helena finds us surrounded on all sides by an interminable field of vibrant gold punctuated only by lonely, dark stands of old growth oaks.

But it's the beginning of November, and there's so much fruit still left on the vines. So much, indeed, that will never see the inside of a barrel. Closer to St. Helena, some of the most prized real estate for grape growing in the world, is an increasing frequency of not yellow, but brown––entire vineyards ripped out, their contents left in piles to await the burning season.

"Yields are insane right now," Cole says, seeing me gazing at these now derelict vineyards over his position in the driver's seat, "but demand is so low. There's more fruit on the vines still left than I've ever seen. People are ripping out their vineyards because they can't sell their fruit."

Indeed, across California, tens of thousands of acres of vines are being ripped up. Between harvest in 2024 and the same time in 2025, around 7 percent of Napa's vineyards were torn out, a remarkable figure given how much time and work it takes to establish vineyards in the first place––a new vine usually takes between three and four years to produce usable fruit. In some regions in the Central Valley, up to 18 percent of vineyards were ripped out in the same time period. The data aren't in for the next year's casualties, but if anecdotal evidence is any indicator, we may not have seen anywhere near the worst of it––corporate wineries are increasingly importing cheap bulk wine and rejecting the more expensive California product.

The industry in Napa and Sonoma was reaching a fever pitch of tourism coming into the turn of the decade––the drought vintages of the twenty-teens were excellent and sought after, and tasting rooms were full and many offered increasingly extravagant experiences, like hay rides through vineyards or gourmet food pairings. Appointments at most wineries became a necessity. Meanwhile, inputs to winemaking––land, labor, water, insurance, and supplies––were skyrocketing in cost.

Encouraged by a robust tourism sector, proprietors of wineries across northern California were confidently raising the prices of not just their wines, but also their tasting experiences, with some of the most exclusive winery visits costing just as much as a luxury dinner in Yountville. Wine tourism in Napa in particular was becoming mostly a domain of the wealthy, and wineries seemed perfectly happy to hang their hats on that clientele.

At Ink Grade, their most expensive tasting, costing three figures, takes place in a room with immersive projections on all four walls.

Twenty-twenty changed everything. COVID hit, bringing wine country tourism to a halt. Wineries reopened after COVID with more stringent appointment policies and high prices, set to climb even higher to compensate for the downturn in visitors. The economic collapse from the pandemic wiped out the discretionary finances for tens of millions, and for many, because of inflation and corporate greed, without recovery.

But by now proprietors had overcorrected to the luxury market––keeping prices high, or even increasing them, was the only way to squeak by. Moreover, many wineries had sold through their libraries during the pandemic to keep their businesses afloat. Meanwhile, the fires in 2020 meant not just that many producers lost an entire vintage to sell, but perhaps more important that the world viewed Napa and Sonoma as prone to wildfires at any moment and therefore undesirable for tourism, let alone good wine.

The problem is complex, of course, and the solutions aren't easy. It's undeniable that alcohol consumption is declining––some estimates posit that we are at a near-century low in overall consumption in the United States. Many in the industry blame Gen Z, who are just coming into legal drinking age and seem to have a social media–driven obsession with fitness and health. Others point to the increasing ease of access to cannabis and psilocybin, once viewed as dangerous drugs but now embraced as healthier alternatives to alcohol. But an even more powerful factor might be that we just don't have money to spend, and when we do, it's not on premium wine or trips where a single tasting visit might cost you a Benjamin.

It is a Saturday, and besides the endless parade of bikers toiling up the winding roads, we notice that ours is the only car climbing Pritchard Hill from Conn Valley behind. "I can't believe you got these appointments on a weekend," Cole remarked, and correctly––industry appointments at tasting rooms were just a year or two prior a weekday-only phenomenon at most wineries.

We are en route to Ovid, one of the most prestigious wineries in Pritchard Hill, a district full of heavy-hitters like Continuum, Chappellet, and Realm, each of which still peddles their cabernets for north of $300 or $400 per bottle. Neither of us has the resources to have any business tasting wine here, but we were excited to experience what many consider to be Napa's greatest terroir––old volcanic soils on a series of benches and ridges above Lake Hennessey, with full sunshine from a west-facing aspect and mesoclimate moderated by elevation. From the furthest reaches of the private road up on Pritchard Hill, Napa Valley extends below us in breathtaking panorama.

Up here, the roads are private, appointments are mandatory, and the wines are expensive, even by Napa standards. But you'd never know it when visiting Ovid. We're the only guests of the day, again remarkable to us on a Saturday just after harvest, and our wonderful host, Angela, greets us out front with a glass of white wine from their "Experiment" series. We're also lucky enough to catch winemaker Austin Peterson for a lengthy conversation.

"Great winemaking is constant experimentation," Peterson says, explaining the Experiment series, each label for which has percentages of each varietal to the hundredth decimal. The series allows the winemaking team to explore and refine viticulture and winemaking techniques while also approaching varietals less known, some of which I hadn't even heard of!

In many ways, exploring more obscure varietals might point the way forward for California's wine industry. People like what is interesting and different––at Aubergine, a favorite of our guests was an expression of ribolla gialla by Arnot Roberts, and the vineyard from which the fruit is sourced is just down the hill from Ovid in Oakville and also supplies some of Peterson's ribolla in the current iteration of the Experiment white.

Peterson mentions that I'm a sommelier, and I reply "yeah, but I'm not that kind of somm"––sommeliers have a notoriously bad reputation among winemakers. The group of us chuckle. "It's like a game of telephone," Peterson replies. "Our sales manager explains the wine to the rep, the rep to the wine director, the wine director to the somm, the somm to the guest." I give an amused nod––as I've experienced countless times, the further removed from the farming and the winemaking, the more absurd and pretentious the sales pitch. Peterson finishes, "By the time it gets back to me, someone tells me how I made my wine; I can't help but want to reply, 'I did?'"

A reminder about pretense and the fortress of the wine industry, I suppose––suit-clad somms in expensive restaurants are perhaps the furthest point in the industry from the honest, challenging work done in the vineyard and cellar, often by people earning a fraction of a sommelier's salary. Perhaps if the California wine industry is to grow and move forward, industry professionals can all take a lesson from the "game of telephone"––put our feet on the ground, our hands in the soil, and open our ears, meeting both producers and consumers where they are.

It might not have needed it based on its reputation, but Ovid got a financial lifeline a few years back in a buyout by the Duncan family, owners of massive brands Silver Oak and Twomey. Buyouts like this are increasingly common in wine country these days––as even established family-owned and boutique brands struggle to keep things afloat, multi-million-dollar windfalls look mighty attractive to proprietors. So often, however, the quality of the wines diminishes dramatically. Corners are cut, margins juiced, and the delta between corporate ownership and the work on land increases exponentially.

But as far as Cole and I can tell, the integrity of the wines has not faded in the slightest at Ovid. Tasting their limited selection of premium wine overlooking their pristine vineyard glowing with autumn gold, the valley stretched below, we're in a sort of blissful state, interrupted only by a cellar intern blasting music to accompany his work in the auxiliary cellar adjacent to the private tasting space. Angela apologizes, but Cole and I dig it––"Brings us closer to the winemaking!"

It's not all doom and gloom in wine country––many producers have managed to find a formula for success even amidst this dramatic downturn of visitation and sales. Our last visit of the day is at family-owned Pride Mountain Vineyards, perhaps one of the most isolated properties in wine country nestled at the apex of the brutally curvy and potholed St. Helena Road, the vineyards (and winery itself, with a separate winemaking facility in each county) straddling the border between Napa and Sonoma counties. But despite the challenging location, the parking lot is packed, so full in fact that Cole and I have a hard time finding a parking space. Tourists with cameras meander the edges of the vineyards, capturing the picturesque vines in the late afternoon sun. In many ways, it reminds me of wine country in its heyday.

We'd be part of a group for this tour, an unideal way to experience a winery as professionals in the industry, but also a good opportunity to ground and humble ourselves––when you're surrounded by other wine pros, it's easy to forget how inaccessible wine can be for the broader public. The tour felt rather formulaic and, frankly, I've seen plenty of cellars and wine caves, but our host, Quique, was a pro at navigating both our detailed queries and the more novice questions of our companions with grace and lack of judgment or pretense.

Better still, a tasting here will set each visitor back just $50, quite low by Napa standards, particularly to experience wine of this quality. And the wine, routinely spoken of with reverence by critics, enthusiasts, and professionals, is offered at rather reasonable prices in a district that often commands quite a premium. Perhaps Pride has found a sweet spot––reasonable prices for premium tastings and bottles, and an educational tour and tasting that speaks to guests of all knowledge and experience levels.

And Pride has achieved all this without succumbing to the dreaded corporate buyout. Still family-owned, they produce a significantly higher volume of wine than any other property we'd visit, or even normally want to visit, without compromising quality.

But even some micro-producers are finding success. Cole and I find ourselves on the Healdsburg town square a good hour before our dinner reservation, so a stop at the tasting room of Marine Layer, one of my favorite wineries in California, was an easy decision. The tasting room is in the epicenter of town, right across from the charming redwood-shaded town square; a lucky spot, indeed. When visiting Marine Layer's tasting room, you'll notice that most guests don't have reservations, and very few are turned away.

The folks at Marine Layer have been quite savvy in their winemaking approach. The wines are premium, to be sure, sourcing (mostly) pinot noir and chardonnay from some of the most coveted vineyards in Sonoma County, but immensely approachable. They'll freely admit their wines are made to be consumed young, with plush, mouthwatering, fruit-driven pinots and vibrant, crystalline chardonnays. Even their limited-release cabernets are drinkable in their youth.

Indeed, various studies have estimated that more than 90 percent of wine is consumed within 48 hours of purchase. The figure is likely lower in wine country, where tourists bring home a cache of bottles, but most consumers, even many wine professionals like myself, aren't people who have the interest in or patience to cellar their wines for years. Of course, the vast majority of mass-produced wine isn't meant to be aged anyway, but some artisan producers like Marine Layer, too, understand and have exploited that market reality with aplomb.

It certainly doesn't hurt that the stylish tasting room is positioned right in the bustling heart of Sonoma County's most important town for wine tourism, attracting passersby who might otherwise have had no knowledge of or motive to purchase Marine Layer's wines. The staff is young and effortlessly cool and the tasting experiences varied and inexpensive––all white/rosé wines, all red wines, or a mix, none of which costs more than $45. They're open until 7, and by-the-glass selections and snacks curated by local favorite Little Saint are also available.

My buddy Tyler, behind the counter, quipped "Dr. Steven Knell is in town; we gotta pour everything!" Indeed, we managed to conquer their entire current release portfolio, perhaps an inadvisable decision considering how much wine we intended to open at dinner. Perusing the list, I'm reminded how reasonable their prices are, too––their cuvée chardonnay and pinot noir, each blends of their single-vineyard fruit obtainable for $50 or less, are still to my mind the best deals for premium wine in Sonoma County. Indeed, I sometimes find these two wines to be among their most compelling, as they allow the winemaking team to balance the characteristics of fruit from multiple terroirs and show off their skill.

Two very different wineries, and two recipes for success, even in a time where the broader industry is struggling mightily. The lesson for me is friction––to what extent can wineries minimize the various frictions of visitation and purchasing? Reputation, like at Pride, certainly plays its part, but so does approachability, lack of intimidation. Reasonable pricing, too, for both tastings and bottles.

And Marine Layer speaks to how the iron dome of reservation-only wineries a great distance's drive from tourist accommodations might add friction that would deter guests. Perhaps reliance on exclusivity and ultra-premium clientele is precisely the mistake starving so many California wineries.

"It's all about the seeds."

We're tasting some leftover cabernet berries straight from the vines in the Kronos Vineyard, Cathy Corison's flagship parcel in the southern reaches of the St. Helena AVA. "Cathy figured out the formula for ripeness," our host says. "When the seeds burst when you bite them, the fruit is ready."

Cathy Corison is a legend. Since the late '80s, she's been making some of the most sought after yet controversial wines in Napa Valley––coming into winemaking in the heat of the Robert Parker era, her approach decidedly swam against the current.

American critic Robert Parker is among the most influential figures in wine, and his shadow still looms large over vast segments of the industry. Favoring styles of wine that were exceptionally ripe, very extracted, and heavily oaked, he drove the industry and the market firmly in the direction of his tastes. Traditional winemaking methods, such as production of delicate, nuanced wines in large neutral oak barrels in storied regions of the "old" world, were supplanted by "modern" approaches espoused by Parker––ripeness, body, extraction, oak.

Nowhere was Parker more influential than California. Most consider him broadly responsible for California's reputation for big, superripe cabernet and heavily oaked, buttery chardonnay. And for decades, that style was the toast of the market, even in places with deep tradition like Burgundy, where some wineries were hitting their pinot noirs with "200 percent" new oak––a year in new barrels followed by a second year in another fleet of new barrels. In some circles, this style is still the pinnacle of fine wine.

Winemaking regions in Europe with centuries of tradition have more easily bent back toward classic styles of winemaking, but in California, and much of the rest of the "new" world, the dominant style is still decidedly Parkeresque. Winemakers like Cathy Corison, however, stood their ground, making cabernets with far more restraint and elegance.

Resistance to market currents is certainly admirable. In the face of market pressure to produce leviathan cabernets, Cathy Corison carved a niche and reputation for herself. She was picking her fruit weeks earlier than most producers, releasing wines in the heart of Parker country that instead exhibited perfume, grace, structure, acid, and ageworthiness. And her formula had always been the same––pick at the moment of perfect phenolic ripeness, deciphered through the character of the seeds. In an industry awash in wines of an entirely divergent style, Cathy became somewhat of an antagonist.

These days, the appetite for styles favored by Parker is waning. The market desires elegance and drinkability, wines of complexity that stand on their own with or without food, that are expressive of terroir rather than nuked with oak. This is particularly true among the industry and enthusiast class, even if the broader market, especially in the Americas, is more accustomed to wines that taste like trees. Indeed, Cathy Corison's wines are particularly beloved among industry professionals and sommeliers.

Fearless pioneers like Cathy Corison who never waiver based on the whims of the market serve as icons of the industry. Not only do they create a reputation for their individual technique, which can attract both disciples and detractors, but they commit themselves to a particular style, which is artistry, in a way. And indeed, the Corison wines are some of the most resplendent and beautiful examples of cabernet sauvignon in the world, and always made with humility.

The next day I'd be on the other side of the Mayacamas just below the Moon Mountain district of Sonoma Valley. Here, John Hamel of Hamel Wines is embarking on one of the most ambitious projects in California––converting his entire estate to dry farming.

"I went to Champagne and met with Jacques Selosse," Hamel recounts to me in the lofty Hamel tasting room over a glass of glistening but profoundly intense grenache. "I told him we irrigated the vineyards in California, and without a beat, he replied 'then you have no terroir.'"

Indeed, Hamel didn't care for the wines his family's winery was making. To him, they felt boring; washed out and corporate. He longed instead for a more European style of wine, wines that Hamel believed had a precise sense of place, elegance, and, specifically for Hamel, minerality.

It's minerality, a somewhat nebulous concept in wine, that drives Hamel's approach today: "Many people say 'acidity' is most important, but for me it's always been more precisely 'minerality.'" His search for minerality and complexity in his wines led him to Pedro Parra, called "Dr. Terroir" by many in the industry, one of the most sought-after viticulture consultants in the world, who Hamel cold-called in 2016 after hearing him speak on a podcast.

Parra is an expert on soil in particular, and his rise to fame reflects a shift in the industry's understanding of great winemaking––whereas in the past the importance of the techniques in the cellar and the "genius" of the winemaker were most emphasized, there is a tangible shift toward understanding viticulture, farming, and soil as the most important inputs to the quality of the wines.

Perhaps most important in Parra's discoveries of Hamel's vineyards were the way the root systems responded to irrigation. Digging deep into the soils of Hamel's Nuns Canyon Vineyard, Parra and Hamel found that the clay-dominant soils which the root systems of the vines inhabited concealed dense, glorious, nutrient-poor volcanic basalt. After experimentation, they found that the roots of the irrigated vines spread mostly horizontally––because clay holds on to water and water was being provided to the vines artificially, the vines had no reason to struggle vertically through the basalt in search of water and nutrients.

There's a hesitance toward dry farming in California, and it may be the case that in this Mediterranean climate where it doesn't rain for months in the growing season, dry farming isn't feasible for many if not most winegrowers, particularly as the climate gets hotter and heat spikes more common. But John Hamel, at least so far, has seen only positive results, and it shows in both the vineyard and the glass. The roots are digging deeper into the basalt mother rock, and the wines are immensely complex and, indeed, "mineral" in character. And while many warned Hamel of depleted yields and desiccated berries, they've seen no such consequences.

Parra also moulded other elements of Hamel's viticulture and winemaking––seeing resemblance between the basalt soils of Moon Mountain and the llicorella soils of Priorat, he encouraged Hamel to plant more grenache. He also encouraged head training rather than trellising to constrain yields, as well as winemaking with longer, colder macerations, an absence of new oak, and reduced sulfur. It's obvious in the glass, too. Tasting wines from more clay-dominant parcels side-by-side with those dry farmed in basalt, the delta of complexity and excellence is profound.

My lengthy conversation with John Hamel was an enlightening experience, but the wines spoke for themselves. The purity, intensity, structure, depth of character, and yes, minerality, were evidence that Parra and Hamel's approach was working. Sporting a baseball cap reading "Garnacha," Hamel spoke of the sensitivity of grenache in particular to terroir, and how these dry farmed expressions of grenache were, to his mind, some of the most exciting of his output. I'd go further––these are some of the most compelling wines I'd been lucky enough to taste throughout Sonoma County, if not the state of California.

Winemakers like Cathy Corison and John Hamel offer examples of ambitious, principled, and profoundly serious winemaking that resists the hegemony of dominant thinking. As the adage goes, the proof is in the pudding, or perhaps in the bottle, and have allowed Corison and Hamel to garner dedicated followings and find their own niche of success, even when the tide was against them. Perhaps this is another key to navigating the reckoning confronting wineries in California of late––brave pursuit of your convictions without caving to the currents of the market, at least when it's possible.

On our last morning, we drive north from Santa Rosa through the obscure and isolated Franz Valley to Knights Valley, just north of the furthest reaches of Napa. The reputation of this area is strong, but not as storied as AVAs in Napa, and so I see more vineyards ripped up and ready to burn, and even gorgeous, gnarled old vines still dripping with fruit.

Wineries like Peter Michael, our sole appointment for the day, don't have to worry much about finances. Founded and financed by an obscenely wealthy British businessman, who still owns the vineyards and winery with his family, Peter Michael makes easily the most celebrated wines of the Knight's Valley. It's a premium experience, to be sure, with some spectacular wines and an SUV ride up to one of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen in wine country.

Peter Michael, and other independently well-funded wineries, are outliers. In a relentless tide of rising costs and a relative dearth of visitation and sales, the wine industry in northern California likely still hasn't hit bottom. Many think that the pillaging of vineyards is exactly what the industry needs to stabilize supply to match demand and reduce the overhead of producing wasted fruit. Some predict an increasing consolidation and corporatization of the industry that essentially starves out all but the wealthiest independent and family-owned brands.

But there are glimmers of hope for the industry, even amidst the brutality of the market. Integrity still abounds among winemakers and viticulturists. Many wineries still committed to excellence have been able to find their ways to sweet spots in the market that have allowed them to flourish without compromising quality. I was lucky enough to have extensive conversations with fascinating, thoughtful professionals about the state of winemaking in Napa and Sonoma over the course of a long weekend, and found myself disheartened, yes, but also simultaneously hopeful.

There is still an abundance of resilience, cautious optimism, and joy in the industry. The last three vintages have been nearly perfect. People like Cathy Corison remain devoted to the values and practices that have sustained them for decades, and intrepid winemakers like John Hamel are using this time of turmoil and flux to redefine what is possible in California winemaking. In many ways, there's something exciting in the potential for the rebirth of the industry in one of the most terrific geographies for winegrowing in the world.