What will happen when the Chinese discover Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon?

For the answer, we look to Bordeaux. China is now Bordeaux’s largest export market, a position long held by Britain. As a result, prices for Lafite, Latour and company, already high, have soared, placing those wines effectively beyond the reach of all but the world’s one percenters, including those in China. Chinese people are buying up Bordeaux chateaux, with at least six now so owned. It’s impossible to forecast an end to China’s Boreaux-mania. Indeed, there’s no reason at all why it should stop. It’s just getting started.

The laws of supply and demand being what they are, it’s likely that prices of the top Bordeaux will continue to rise. They’ve been going up for years, anyhow, making this one of the longest sustained periods of steady increases in Bordeaux’s long history, to judge by Eddie Penning Rowsell’s record-keeping in The Wines of Bordeaux.

But even a wealthy Chinese collector must blanch to some of these prices. What happens when top tier Bordeaux starts to be too expensive in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai? People look to second tier Bordeaux. That’s exactly what we see happening: Decanter just reported that, despite some softening in pricing for Lafite and other First Growths on the auction market, prices for “blue chip second wines” are “robust,” a phenomenon that “is almost certainly due to the Chinese market.” The Chinese, it seems, will pay more for a wine like Carruades de Lafite (from Chateau Lafite Rothschild) or Chateau Margaux’s Pavillon Rouge than will an American or European.

So we already see incredibly high pricing pinching the prices of First Growths in China, leading to increased demand for “lesser” but still prestigious Bordeaux. What does it mean for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon?

Pretty obvious. After Bordeaux, what’s the most famous region in the world for Bordeaux-style wines? You got it. Chinese interest in Napa Valley is on the rise. A delegation of Chinese wine industry types recently visited the valley, and of course Yao Ming is going to further raise Napa’s visibility in his homeland when he starts selling his own wine there.

You can see where this is heading. it can be only a matter of time before the top ranked Napa Cabernets hit China bigtime. (I suspect the Chinese will have a harder time with Meritage-style wines with proprietary names.) The Napa Valley Vintners, sensing opportunities, last year sent a major league delegation to the PRC; it included Amuse Bouche, Rubicon, Dalla Valle, Wilver Oak, Moone-Tsai and Heitz. Janet Viader, who also was part of the mission, told the Napa Register on her return, “I was very inspired to pursue opening the Chinese market for us.”

Truer words never were spoken.

I ran into an old friend yesterday, a professional who works in the Rock Ridge area of North Oakland. He’s a wine guy with a particular penchant for Brunello. He never had much liking for California wine, including Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Too rich, too soft, too sweet–you know the routine. I always told him that, while he was waiting for those pesky Brunellos to mature, he could be drinking Cabernet. But no, he just didn’t care for it.

“But I recently had a Napa Cabernet for dinner with some friends,” he told me yesterday, “and, man, was it good! So I’m thinking maybe my palate is changing, away from Brunello toward Cabernet.”

This matter of “changing palates” has always fascinated me. There’s no reason, when you think about it, why somebody’s palate shouldn’t change over a period of years. Our preferences and tastes evolve; our bodies themselves undergo certain effects of aging; and a host of other, intangible factors can contribute to the phenomenon of a changing palate. Any and all of these could have resulted in my friend’s new appreciation of Cabernet.

However, it could also be simply that Napa Valley Cabernet has gotten so good, you’d practically have to be a misanthrope not to like it. I think, in the case of my friend, his aversion to Cabernet went something like this: He decided many years ago that he didn’t care for it. Maybe that was because he hadn’t had very good Cabernet. Maybe his infatuation with Brunello–a wine that’s notoriously tannic in youth, requiring many years of age–made him sensitive to Cab’s softness, which in turn made him insensitive to its charms.

I think some people go through phases in their wine appreciation. I’ve always been mildly surprised at how people tell me they like “x” or “y”, but they hate “z,” even when all three wines are well made and typical of their type. Myself, I can appreciate any wine, as long as it’s well made. I’m very catholic [with a small “c”] in that regard. People are always asking me, “What’s your favorite wine?”, and although I really have none, I gave up trying to explain that years ago, and nowadays I simply say “sparkling wine or Champagne” and leave it at that. But the reason I can’t have a favorite wine is because when so many different wines are so excellent, it’s a form of bias to reject some of them. So I don’t.

Back to my friend. My assumption is that, after years of persuading himself he didn’t like Napa Cabernet, he inadvertently stumbled across one recently and was stunned to discover that, yes, this is utterly, completely delicious. Sure, it may not have the stinging tannins of Brunello, but then again, that’s not what [most] Napa Cabernets are about. It’s nothing against Brunello to admit how luscious a great Napa Cabernet can be. It’s simply a matter of broadening your palate, or perspective, to include other forms of goodness.

I wish my friend had remembered the particular Cabernet that changed his mind. Alas, he didn’t. I hate when that happens–when people tell me about a certain wine they had (and that I may have reviewed), but can’t recall its name. It could have been any one of dozens: there are really so many great wineries in Napa Valley focusing on Cabernet/Meritage wines that it’s impossible to keep track of them. Some of the greatest Cabernets I’ve reviewed in the last few months have come from Venge, Araujo, JCB (yes, our friend, Jean-Charles Boisset, whose No. 1 Cabernet is quite an achievement, although it isn’t cheap: $150), Stag’s Leap Cask 23, Caymus Special Selection [particularly awesome considering the high production level], Shafer Hillside Select [what else is new?], Macauley 2007 [a new name to me. I looked it up and wasn't surprised. The winemaker is Kirk Venge. The grapes come from To Kalon and from the Star Vineyard, planted by David Abreu.]. Other Cabernets that knocked me out lately were Moone-Tsai’s “Cor Leonis,” Vineyard 7&8’s Estate (so seriously overlooked, this winery is), and a Sequoia Grove ‘07 “Rutherford Bench Reserve” that proves this veteran winery is still in front of the pack.

Any wine lover with an open mind cannot fail to appreciate the sheer world-class-ness of wines like these. If someone does, they’re just being ideological about it, like I think my friend was, for all those years. Fortunately, some people are wise, or blessed, enough to eventually see through their own ideologies and discard them, after which the scales fall from their eyes, enabling them to appreciate a whole new dimension of wines. My friend now is a certified Napa-centric. Welcome to the club!

The best thing about prognostications (a fancy word for “guess”) is that nobody can prove you’re wrong in advance, and by the time the future comes, it’s unlikely anyone will haul out your predictions and show how massively incorrect they were. So here we go: my prognostications about what we can expect next year in the world of wine.

The big news is that the wine industry will improve economically. The conventional wisdom of the last three-plus years is that wine at the high end has been slammed, as consumers, wary of spending too much, cut back on the amount they’re willing to pay for a bottle of wine. This has supposedly been good for companies like Bronco, Gallo, The Wine Group and others who can manufacture a sound bottle of wine and retail it for under ten bucks. But it’s been very hard on premium wineries. I’ve heard it time and time again, from owners and/or winemakers at these wineries, who tell me, off the record, that they’d be lying if they claimed everything was hunky dory.

But the U.S. economy seems to be recovering, and I have the feeling 2012 is going to be robust. I think the GDP will be up sharply, the housing market will show signs of life, the unemployment rate will go down, and personal income will rise, albeit modestly. We’ve seen, in the latest economic cycle, that consumers are spending like they haven’t spent in three years. They’re sick and tired of frugality. They haven’t treated themselves to very much since 2007, and they’re reading to start living again! That means a $12, $15, $18, maybe even a $20 bottle of wine.

I don’t see any major trends erupting in 2012, but hey, I missed sweet Moscato! The sweet red wine trend will pick up steam, but who cares? (No disrespect to anybody, but I’m into fine wine, not plonk.) I can guarantee you Chardonnay will continue to sell like crazy, and don’t look for lower levels of oak anytime soon (despite the oak-free phenomenon), because all those consumers with a sweet tooth (Moscato, reds) will find oaky California Chardonnay to their liking, with its sweet, simple vanilla and butterscotch flavors.

Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir remain red hot. I think the Cabernet market from $12-$18 will be particularly healthy, and for sure there are a lot of good wines at that price. There’s nothing going on in Pinot Noir below $18, but once you get up to $25-plus, your options increase. Pinot will be seen as a luxury wine, Cabernet as the everyday standard, and the reason that won’t change is inherent in the properties of the varieties themselves. You just can’t make a decent Pinot Noir unless the vineyard is in the right place and yields are kept low. That’s not true for Cabernet, which can be made decently from Temecula and Lodi to the Sierra Foothills and Mendocino County.

On the social media side, I don’t expect any great breakthroughs when it comes to wineries using Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. in 2012. An interesting article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle suggests that Twitter “can marginally help a candidate’s general message…but the jury is out as to whether tweets lead to votes.” Isn’t that what I’ve been saying here for years–that engaging, even heavily, in social media can help a winery marginally to get the message out, but the jury is still out on whether or not social media can lead to sales. I maintain that position. Wineries are in a good position to take advantage of the impending recovery, but they’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: by pounding the pavements, or hiring salesmen to do it for them. Advertising, for those who can afford it, helps, as does a proper alignment of quality and price.

My final prognostication is that I’ll still be here, blogging, writing and reviewing for Wine Enthusiast, and having fun running around California and, hopefully, staying out of trouble.

It’s easy to make a splash in the wine biz in California if you have a few hundred million in spare change to invest in a fabulous winery designed by a famous architect, then hire a famous consulting winemaker, put out a $150 Cabernet that goes on to be the top lot at the Napa Valley Auction or Premier Napa Valley, and then hire a top of the line P.R. firm to spread the word about your fabulosity.

It’s hard to make a splash when your “winery” is a dumpy little wooden barn on “the wrong side of the hill”, you have no budget for P.R. or much of anything else, and you don’t even make Cabernet. But it can be done, and for proof you need look no further than Joseph Swan Vineyards.

I’ve been a Swan fan forever. I began tasting their wines (not for review, for sheer enjoyment) in the 1980s. I still remember a dinner at Chez Panisse at which Swan’s winemaker (and Joe Swan’s son-in-law), Rod Berglund, brought down a bunch of old wines for a tasting, for which Alice Waters prepared a magnificent meal (lamb, if I recall correctly). Those wines had aged perfectly even though some of them were 20 years old. (I covered the winery extensively in my first book, A Wine Journey along the Russian River.)

I reviewed a bunch of their latest releases yesterday and was again reminded just how good and authentic Swan wines are. Few wineries in California have such a good track record across so many varieties. I’ve given consistent high scores to Swan Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Syrah, Viognier, Chardonnay and even to a Tannat I loved last year. Can you name another winery that performs so well in so many kinds of wine? Off the top of my head, I can’t. The reason, I think, is because Swan is very careful to source their grapes only from the coolest parts of the Russian River Valley, and the best vineyards. It’s also because Rod is a hell of a winemaker. His Pinot Noirs are probably his best wines; I gave his the 2007 Trenton Estate 97 points, and at $52 it’s less than a lot of Pinots that aren’t even as good. You could call it Burgundian because it has such great acidity and a mushroomy thing going on that’s obviously pure terroir, but I think I’m going to stop referencing wines as “Burgundian” because, after all, the correct word to use is “Russian River Valley-an” or “Trentonian” or some other word that’s about our terroir, not theirs.

So kudos to Joseph Swan Vineyards and Rod Berglund. They’re still going strong after all these years.

* * *

I’m headed up to Napa later this morning to hang with Jayson Woodbridge, the owner/winemaker at Hundred Acre, Layer Cake and Cherry Pie. I want to see how his vintage is coming along (and to see him, too. Fascinating guy). We chatted briefly on the phone the other day and he was excited. Now, vintners are always “excited” about the latest vintage, or so they claim when talking with ink-stained wretches like me. I think they’d find something positive to say if an asteroid hit Napa Valley right in the middle of harvest. “The Asteroid Vintage of the Century!” But I agree with Jayson’s take. The rainfall of the first and second weeks of October was a drag and everybody was scared witless by as much as 4 inches that drenched Sonoma and Napa. But they’re dancing in the cellars over the weather that followed: two weeks of absolutely gorgeous, drop dead beautiful weather, dry, sunny and warm. No big heat at all, just mild, breezy conditions that will dry out the ground and the leaves and grapes still on the vine. I think this could be a tough vintage for the coolest coastal locations (Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, for example), where growers could experience mold and unripeness, in addition to severely short crops. But the star of the vintage might just well be Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Meritages, although the best will be produced in miniscule quantities because of this low-yielding year.

I’ve reviewed more $100 and up Cabs and Bordeaux blends in the last several months than ever, by far. One might have thought that the quantity of expensive California wines would be going down because of the recession, which as we all know has forced Americans to seek out more affordable wines. That’s the conventional wisdom, so I’m not really sure how to account for this plethora of pricy bottles, except that, maybe, the proprietors know something I don’t.

Some of these wines are familiar; they’ve been expensive forever and will remain so. Others that made this list are new to me, either as brands, or this is the first time I’ve seen them break the $100 barrier. By the way, I’m sure there are far more $100-plus Cabs I reviewed this year than just the ones on this list. I got tired searching through the database after I reached the Ridge. And remember, this is just $100 and over. There are dozens more that are $60, $75 and $90, which is still pretty expensive in my book.

I’m not saying these aren’t good wines, or that they’re not worth the price. I’m simply impressed by how many California (and mainly Napa Valley) wineries are pricing so high these days. It used to be a sound principle of marketing, back in the good old pre-recession days, that if you priced your Cab too low, people would think it wasn’t very good. You’d be surprised how many Cabs out there increased their prices for this simple reason, and then saw their sales increase, because a lot of newly rich people thought expensive=good, and so more expensive=better. Is that why so many of these wines are $100 and up? Or is it because the proprietors, many of whom are in greater touch with Wall Street than I am, sense that change is coming–that people are loosening up the purse strings and willing to spend more, if only for an occasional special wine?

I don’t know, but here’s the list. It’s almost like a Bordeaux classified growth menu. I also have no idea if people actually are buying these wines, or if the owners are simply hoping they will. It’s just fascinating to me to see this insight into the owner mentality these days.

Venge 2008 Family Reserve Cab $125
Araujo 2007 Eisele $275
Stonestreet 2007 Christopher’s $100
Vineyard 7&8 2008 Estate Cabernet, $125
Hall 2007 Exzellenz $165
Hall 2008 Exzellenz $165
Hall 2007 Segassia Vineyard Cab $145
Hall 2008 Segassia Vineyard Cab $150
Moone-Tsai 2008 Cor Leonis $175
Flora Springs 2008 Hillside Reserve Cab $100
Salvestrin 2007 3D Cab, $125
Hestan 2007 Cab $100
D.R. Stephens 2008 Moose Valley Vineyard Cab $125 and 2008 Walther River Block Cab $105
Far Niente 2008 Cab $120
Maybach 2008 Weitz Vineyard “Materium” Cab $125
ZD 2008 Reserve Cab $125
B Cellars 2008 Beckstoffer To Kalon Cab $125
Staglin 2008 Cab $185 and 2007 INEO $250
Jarvis 2005 Reserve Cab $195
Jarvis 2007 Lake William Cab $115
Tom Eddy 2004 Dr. Crane Cab $115
Bennett Lane 2008 Lynch Family Vineyard Cab $125
Von Strasser 2008 Reserve $125
Verite 2006 La Joie $300 and Le Desir $300 and La Muse $260
Merryvale 2008 Profile $165
Parallel 2008 Estate Cab $125
Charles Krug 2008 “Celebrating 150 Years” Cab $150 and X Clones Cab $100
Rubicon 2008 $175
Knights Bridge 2008 Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Cab $135 and 2008 Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cab $135
David Arthur 2008 Elevation 1147 Cab $150
Promise 2006 Cab $225
Carter 2008 Beckstoffer To Kalon $125
Janzen 2008 Missouri Hopper Vineyard Cab $100 and 2008 Cloudy’s Vineyard Cab $100
Tuck Beckstoffer 2007 Mockingbird Green Label Cab $170
Joseph Phelps 2008 Backus Vineyard Cab $250 and 2008 Insignia $200
Pride Mountain 2007 Reserve Cab $125 and 2008 Vintner Select Cab $130
Louis M. Martini 2008 Lot 1 Cab $120
Meander 2008 Morisoli Vineyard Cab $120
Luna 2006 North Fork Cab $110
Diamond Creek 2008 Gravelly Meadow, Volcanic Hill and Red Rock Terrace, all $175
Baldacci 2007 Brenda’s Vineyard Cab $105
Veedercrest 2006 Cab $125
Veedercrest 2007 Cab $200
Arrowood 2007 Reserve Speciale Cab $110
Kapcsandy 2008 Grand Vin Cab $325 and 2008 State Lane Vineyard $165
Nickel & Nickel 2008 Martin Stelling Vineyard Cab $140
M by Michael Mondavi 2007 Cab $200
Bialla 2009 Vita Cab $125
Robert Mondavi 2008 Reserve Cab $135
Carter 2008 Coliseum Block Cab $125
Beringer 2008 Private Reserve Cab $115
Duckhorn 2007 The Discussion $115
Cardinale 2007 $300
Dominus 2008 $149
White Cottage 2008 Celestia Estate $125
Continuum 2008 $150
Viader 2008 $100
Alpha Omega 2008 Era $195
Ridge 2008 Monte Bello $145

I started my tasting diary on Feb. 16, 1983. I’d been seriously getting into wine the previous four years, and, infatuated with Michael Broadbent’s Great Vintage Wine Book, decided that, like him, I’d keep track of every wine I had. I even removed the labels and pasted them in the diary.

The first wine in Book One of my diary was a 1981 Morgon Beaujolais from Georges Duboeuf. It cost $6. I called it “delightful.” The second wine was from the following night. It was a Macon-Villages, also 1981, and it set me back all of $4. It was all right; I said it was a “good Chinese food wine.” The third wine was Kenwood’s 1980 Vintage Red Cabernet Sauvignon ($3.50). Kenwood’s basic Red and White wines were staples of the Heimoff household for a good part of the 1980s.

The fourth wine brings us to Germany: an off-dry 1980 Bernkastler Badstube, from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer ($3.99). I drank it with a cheese omelot. The fifth wine (and the fifth in as many days–I was basically a bottle-a-day man back then) also was German: 1981 Erben Kabinett, from the fine producer, Langguth, in the Rheinhessen. It cost $4. Number six brought me back to France, a 1979 Domaine d’Ormesson. For $3, it was another house favorite of mine. Here are numbers 7 through 10:

1979 Kirchheimer Romerstrasse Riesling Kabinett, trocken (price not recorded)

1979 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay ($12, pricy)

1976 Chateau Beauregard, Saint-Julien ($5)

1976 Wine and the People Zinfandel, Sonoma ($10)

I engage in this stroll down memory lane because I find it remarkable how catholic (with a small “c”) my drinking was back then. You will find in that tasting diary wines from all over the world, in every price bracket: Yquem and Leoville-Las-Cases at the higher end, cheap little regional wines at the low.

I tasted even more broadly throughout the later 1980s and into the early 1990s, after I began writing about wine and getting invited to events at which the great wines of the world were opened for me, including First Growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundy. But when Wine Enthusiast asked me to be their California reviewer, I found that I no longer had the time to indulge in worldwide tasting, swamped as I was with Cali wines. That remains the situation today. I try to get out to international tastings, and occasionally I’ll pull an older bottle of something Italian or French from my [small] wine cellar. But I’ll be the first to admit that my tasting is 98% California these days.

We all taste with the palate we have, which is not necessarily the palate we might want (to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld from a different context), so I suppose it’s no use lamenting that I might have developed a California palate over the years. If I have, so be it. Such a palate might be described as favoring full-bodied, higher-alcohol wines with overtly sweet, ripe fruit and, often, a generous cloak of new oak. One can say such wines trade finesse for power, elegance for audacity, subtlety for sheer razzle dazzle. Still, within this context one still can find enough distinctions of finesse, elegance and subtlety to make comparative judgments. Let us consider two Cabernet Sauvignons: Araujo 2007 Eisele Vineyard and Mockingbird 2007 Red Label. Both are expensive; both are from Napa Valley. Both have vast concentrations of sweet black fruits, but the former has impeccable structure and dryness, while the latter lacks it. I could see a Bordeauxphile trying both wines and objecting that both are candied and unbalanced. However, I am not a Bordeauxphile, and to my palate there is a big difference between these two wines, similar as they are to each other.

Does my California palate mean I can’t appreciate a good, dry Bordeaux? I don’t think so. But I will admit that when I taste Bordeaux (for example, at the annual Union des Grands Crus event in San Francisco), I often find it too austere and earthy for me; and when a Bordeaux does appeal to me, it’s because it’s Californian in style. This isn’t to say I think that California Cabernet Sauvignon is objectively better than Bordeaux. It’s just my taste. But it puzzles and annoys me when somebody says Bordeaux is objectively better than California Cabernet Sauvignon. Why do they have to make it a contest? Two different wines, two different kinds of people. Something for everyone.

When all’s said and done, I do worry that I’ve developed a California palate, but like I said earlier, there’s nothing to be done about it. Besides, it would be bizarre indeed if I–a California wine critic–didn’t care for California wine. I like it a lot, but, as a final note, I will concede (sadly) that too much California wine, red and white, is too sweet. I like sweet fruit, but I loathe a table wine that should finish dry but doesn’t. (I loathe an unripe wine, too.) That’s the risk of making wine in sunny California. The brix gets carried away. Too many winemakers either allow it to happen and don’t know or care, or else they think they’re catering to a consumer who likes soda-poppy wines. I don’t.