Harvest Updates: The end of harvest -- Cabernet Sauvignon (Part 2)

Part 2: It's been such an incredible vintage I don't even know where to begin with extolling 2024's virtues. Extremely high sugars and low pHs with lots of acidity on the midpalate that is balanced (at least in the wines that are just finishing fermentation now -- our Merlot blocks, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and our Block 1 Cabernet Sauvignon) by a wonderfully rich and sweet midpalate, and a finish that goes on for days. These will be some of the biggest wines we have produced since 2018, with the classic vintages of 2019, 2021, and 2022 taking a bit of a backstage place, and just (I think and hope and believe) edging out 2023 as the finest vintage since 2016.

On the 2024 Vintage

Dear friends,

Harvest is slowly coming to a close here in Napa Valley, and so far, I have to admit, it's been exceptional. The late spring and early summer were mostly hot and bright, forecasting strong vegetative growth for next year.  Towards the end of July the temperatures began to cool, and we had a generally mild and temperate August. Despite about a week and a half of particularly hot and arid temperatures in mid-September, the end of the summer has been classic, dry, balanced, and moderate, allowing even ripening in all of our vineyards.

We harvested our estate Sauvignon Blanc on September 4, with great sugar and acidity, and a near perfect pH of 3.2.  Chardonnay was harvested on September 12, and from the beginning we were incredibly excited about the potential in this year's fruit -- juicy, peachy, tropical, everything I was hoping for. We pressed the Chardonnay to mostly new French oak barrels and the wine spontaneously began fermentation within three days. We followed Chardonnay in the Petaluma Gap with Pinot Noir on September 19, from our La Tâche clone in limestone-laden deep Haire loam soils.

Returning to Napa Valley on October 2, we harvested Merlot from Block 3, followed by Block 2 Merlot on October 4, together with our Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. A portion of Block 2 Merlot, and all of the Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot were co-fermented due to the excessively low yields we received, both as these vines are still quite young and have yet to set a full crop, as well as because we dropped about 30% of the fruit set to support and encourage full development of the remaining crop and thus maximize quality throughout the vineyard.

We started to harvest Cabernet Sauvignon on Saturday, October 5, together with all of our estate olive trees. As our fermentation tanks were then full, and the wonderful, sweet aromas of fermentation greeted us every morning for the past three weeks, we took this moment to let the balance of our Cabernet Sauvignon continue to ripen in the vineyard. Our next harvest came on October 18, with our Clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon, which in recent years has formed the backbone ("structure") of our Reserve Cabernet program.

While the Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir have all finished primary fermentation, both the Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir are continuing through malolactic fermentation now.  As is customary, malo was halted in the Sauvignon Blanc after three weeks. We are continuing to stir all of these barrels weekly. As a side note, it's a great time to visit the winery to taste these "bright young things" from barrel, as they are still so pungent, racy, and yeasty.

The Merlot tanks, as well as the co-fermented Merlot/Cabernet Franc/Petit Verdot tank, are still struggling through the end of fermentation -- these are truly the nail-biting moments for me personally, as we check the sugars every morning to see if they are still "moving." We are keeping the tanks hot, and pumping them over each day briefly, to encourage the wines to finish dry. All I can say is, it's in God's hands now, and I find myself praying a bit more than usual.

As many of you know, our winemaking style has continued to evolve over time. There is an old saying in this industry that winemaking is a journey, not a destination, and it could never have been more true than it has been for us. In the beginning of this adventure, I was interested in making the most balanced wines, led by the wines I had loved when I first started working in wine retail in college -- wines like Ridge Vineyards "Monte Bello" Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. I was interested in making truly "American" wines, so like they did at Ridge, I played with a lot of American oak, and these are still some of the most interesting wines we have ever made -- and some of our favorites come from this period.

Over the following years, we experimented with a number of different styles. From 2012-2016, our wines became a bit more flamboyant, robust, juicy and full. 2017 was a classic vintage, but 2018 was very much in this style; I think of these as a sort of plateau during that period in style. Contemporaneously, however, the Pinot Noirs we were making became more and more restrained. During this period we saw the creation and release of the "Sean W. McBride" wine label -- something that I think I had to do in order to better understand my goals as a vigneron. 2019, the off-year of 2020, and 2021, were a return to a more balanced, elegant, and leaner-style of winemaking, influenced as I had been in the previous period by the winemakers I had been moonlighting for (I'll leave out any name-dropping, as insightful as that may seem).

And then, with the 2022 vintage, we had the revelation of what direction Crosby Roamann would be going in the future, and this happened to coincide, perhaps not incidentally, with the purchase of our own vineyard in 2020, and the release of our first estate white wine.

The vintages of 2022, 2023, and now 2024, have been marked by what I might refer to as a modest style of winemaking -- I have tried to take my "ego" entirely out of the winemaking process. This isn't about me, after all is said and done, it's about the wines, and I think that's what I learned by developing a brand under my own name. Crosby Roamann isn't about me, it's about great wine, and that's all, and that's what I am committed to, each and every day -- truly great wines.

And with that in mind, some thoughts on what to expect from the 2024 vintage wines: I am already drinking them from barrel, and enjoying them, which is saying a lot, I think. Young wine, you have to understand, usually needs time in barrel to develop, to mature, to soften, to come together -- that's why we spend so much money on barrels and wait so long for the wines to develop in them. And the fact that I’m enjoying them while they’re still so young, is rare.

By way of example, when Chardonnay is young, it is usually tight, reductive, and yeasty, with angular flavors. When I was first starting out, I remember learning from a trade magazine, perhaps even the Wine Advocate, that John Kongsgaard, the veteran and legendary winemaker of his eponymous wine label, said of Chardonnay that you needed to let it die, and then you needed to resurrect it, and in some ways I believe this may be true, that's why you need to stir the barrels and let it age, often for up to 18 months -- but all I can tell you today is that I am drinking this damn thing right out of the barrel at about six weeks of age and it is the most intriguing Chardonnay I have ever tasted so young, and I simply cannot express my excitement about the wine it is going to mature into by 2026!

The Sauvignon Blanc is robust and sumptuous, with our peach-syrup estate flavors but a strong backbone of acidity. The Pinot Noir is balanced and elegant, even as it is finishing malolactic fermentation and developing that warm, buttery flavor that malo always has when it's young.  It's spicy with some concentrated herbal notes that herald a nice complexity.

And it's still too young to truly discuss the estate red wines, but by all measures, they stand to be some of the most complex and voluptuous wines we have ever produced, God willing.

Just a couple more final thoughts: Thanksgiving selections are available online. Please find them here.

Also, the Fall/Winter 2024 Membership is still available for a limited time. Please join the Membership here. Joining as a Member is the best way to support our winery. Receive FREE Shipping, 10% discounts, the annual Member gift, and FREE Tastings when you join the Membership.

I'll end it there. It's been quite the morning, and a bit of a trip down memory lane.

With love from Napa Valley,

Sean W. McBride

PS: You might have noticed that the format of this email is a bit different from those of the past, and perhaps a bit of an explanation is due, if only to give credit where credit is due -- Some friends/members of the winery visited for a tasting recently, as they have been every autumn for the past couple years, and they suggested that we send this simple text email, and make it more personal, such as it is. So we decided to try it this time around. Let us know what you think? Personally, we still kind of enjoy designing the more visually exciting announcements, but they do tend to lend themselves more to a "marketing" style of communication, and I've always personally found I prefer the direct communicative style.

Harvest Updates: The end of harvest -- Cabernet Sauvignon (Part 1)

Part 1: Harvest comes to a close on 2024 today with the last block of our Cabernet Sauvignon, with Orion high in the southwest sky and a full moon overhead. And now that harvest is over, queue the music, this is when I get all melancholy and reminiscent about all the things that could have gone wrong but didn't and happened to go right, or maybe I'm just exhausted today. We started at 4am and pulled in 3.0105 tons of Clone 337, which tends to be our "reserve" grade selection which will ferment in Beta Tank, and 2.019 tons of Clone 169 which will ferment in Alpha Tank and likely will form the backbone (i.e., structure) of our Estate Bottled Red Wine.

 

 

 

Harvest Updates: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot

 

Happy to report: It's been a delightful harvest so far. We harvested our Merlot, Block 3,  on October 2, followed by Block 2 Merlot on October 4, along with our Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot from Block 1 the same day. We returned Saturday October 5 and harvested the remainder of Block 1 -- all of our Cabernet Sauvignon, along with our olives. Almost all of the Merlot was destemmed to individual tanks, but for two macro bins that were blended with our Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot for a field blend primary fermentation, and the Cabernet Sauvignon is fermenting separately.

The flavors are off the charts, and it's really quite exciting, as the grapes are undergoing a seven-day cold soak prior to primary fermentation.

Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Sweet "Hungarian" Paprika

 

It was one of those special days of the year when, over the weekend, Juliana and I harvested a grocery bag's worth of bright red Hungarian-bred sweet red peppers and brought them home to process. The process is relatively easy. We wash and dry the peppers, and then cut them lengthwise by hand and remove most of the ribs and seeds. Next we lay them out on a large rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment pepper. Then we dry them in the oven at the lowest temperature we can get, which in our oven is only 200F (a lower temperature of 140 would be ideal, but it would take longer ... much, much, much longer). The drying process at 200F takes about 5-6 hours, after which we let the dried peppers cool over night. In the morning, we crush them by hand, and process them into a fine powder in our spice grinder (from Cuisinart). Lastly, storage! We keep our sweet "Hungarian" paprika in an air-tight container in the fridge, in which condition it will last all year long, and often longer.

Interested in learning more? Let us know! Visit the "Contact us" page and give us a shout.

Next recipe coming up -- Chicken Paprikas.

 

 

 

 

Vineyard updates:

Things are moving fast these days at the vineyard. The reds are nearing completion of veraison, the Sauvignon Blanc is sugaring up, olives are fleshing out, and the roses are in bloom. Trino and I have been going through the vineyard daily to drop green fruit from the Cabernets and the Merlot, space out the clusters, do a little final leaf pulling on some of the more overgrown vines -- generally just trying to clean things up as much as possible. The weather has been consistent, warm, without any significant wind.

Vineyard updates: Veraison underway in the Merlot

"Wow!" It's the only word to describe the pace of ripening this year. After a seemingly endless string of warm weather throughout July, veraison has started earlier than I think in any year since we started making wine in 2007. The Merlot is already about 40% colored, perhaps more or less in some blocks, with the strongest vines leading the way. It's going to be an exciting harvest!

Fall/Winter 2024 Member Shipments + New Releases

 

Thrilled and elated to share our new releases with you. Without question -- the finest line-up of the membership we have ever released. Premier and Collector Member shipments (and advance orders of new releases) will begin shipping in September, weather permitting. The Crosby's Reserve Club -- our six-bottle wood box featuring the 2021 vintage -- will ship in October.

2021 Crosby's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

"The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Crosby's Reserve, tasted as a barrel sample, is deep garnet-purple in color. It offers up expressive scents of blackcurrant jelly, plum preserves, and blueberry pie leading to wafts of rose oil, raspberry coulis, and cinnamon stick with a hint of cardamom. The medium to full-bodied palate shimmers with energetic black and red berry layers, supported by fine-grained tannins and a refreshing backbone, finishing long and perfumed." 96 LPB

2022 Syrah Petaluma Gap

Meaty, musky, and sexy, with a long, tantalizing finish with notes of beef's blood, bacon, leather, orange flower, and soft chalky acid. Our Rowan Vineyard Syrah occupies a hillside on the northern edge of the Petaluma Gap, on a steep, south-facing, rolling hillside with the steepest slopes facing south and southwest. The soil here has a higher percentage of limestone than usual for this area. The grapes are fully destemmed and fermented in stainless steel for 14-21 days, and the wine is aged in 40% new French oak barrels for eighteen months. 93 WE

2022 Chardonnay Napa Valley

We picked our Chardonnay by hand, at dawn. The grapes were whole-cluster pressed and the juice fermented in French oak barrels, then aged 18 months in oak. The 2022 Chardonnay has a lightly green-tinted yellow-gold color, with white-rose floral notes. It is medium bodied, with notes of mellow tar and matchstick on the attack, then tart green apple, fresh pineapple, and a touch of buttery burnt caramel. 92 WA

 

 

Vineyard updates & vegetable boxes, peppers, tomatoes

We installed three large vegetable boxes near our well in the vineyard this year and planted tomatoes and two kinds of peppers, both generally popular in traditional Hungarian cuisine -- sweet paprila peppers (for paprikas) and gypsy peppers, a brilliantly neon green small pepper that can be eaten with dips, stuffed, or used as an accompaniment for paprikash. So far everything has been thriving and we're looking forward to a September harvest for most of the veggies.

Tomatoes and peppers gone wild in the vegetable boxes --

Sugar accumulation has already begun in the Sauvignon Blanc, pictured below. By contrast, the Sauvignon Blanc fruit has set with nicely spaced clusters, and not as much of the bunching as in the Merlot pictured above.

Sauvignon Blanc continued -- pictured here -- Musque clone planted in 1999. This is one of our rare cordon-pruned vines, which generally occupy the end rows in the Sauvignon Blanc block 4.

 

Thoughts on Wine Labels: Part 1 -- the new releases.

 

Thought on Wine labels ... So ... I think we've finally gotten it right. And yet I hesitate to say that, since it's been seventeen years of label evolution. I'm really happy with the labels now, and I finally think we have it dialed in, but it got me thinking. What finally changed? Why did it take so long for me to feel like we'd finally found a match between our brand and our label. And how crazy is it that it took seventeen years for it to evolve to a place where I was finally happy with it, like truly and fundamentally happy with it?

I don't really have the answers to these questions. The Great Diety above must have had some plan for it, but lord if I know. I absolutely wish that we could have shown up on day 1 with our 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon with this label, and never changed or diverged in any way -- I really do -- but Crosby Roamann has been an adventure and a mystery to me in so many respects that just wasn't our path. The good news is, however, I really believe we're finally there. So let's take a look at it -- what we love about them, how we got there, and why.

First off, I'm really happy we dropped the Sean W McBride line of wines. We've gone back to Crosby Roamann for all our branding, and it makes we so happy. I was never really thrilled to have my own name on the labels -- it just felt wrong. sure, I had my reasons for it, and believe me, NONE of them were vanity. They were good reasons, which I won't go into now, but ultimately Crosby Roamann and Sean W. McBride just didn't work as a branding idea. It really started to make sense to me when we went for dinner at a long time restaurant account, and despite the fact that they carried all our wines -- Bon Ton, Crosby Roamann, and Sean W. McBride -- everyone referred to me as "Mr. Crosby." It was at that point that I realized that no matter what I did, or put on the label, most people would still think of me, personally, as "Crosby Roamann." So why not lean into it? And that's what we did.

Second, I love the copper foil tone and the warmth it brings to the brand. And the roses seem to have come out just right in the full-bleed print, rather than the inverse/outline we have been printing since 2016. Third, I love the script on the varietal and the appellation. Fourth, I love the color and the font of the vintage. Fifth, I love the copper border matching the roses. And lastly, it just all WORKS together, aesthetically, it just reads, finally, as what I had imagined, but never been able to visualize conceptually, all those years ago.

If there was one thing I would change (aha! Here I go again ...) I might add a UPC code to the bottom left of the wrap -- I'm sure it would help sales in places like Whole Foods, but aesthetically, I'm happy it's not there. Some things like UPC codes and "romance copy" remind me I'm buying a "product" and not a piece of "art," and I prefer the latter.