Napa : long, cool 2010 promises ’elegant’ vintage

Vintners in Napa are reporting ‘excellent quality’ across the region in reds and whites – though the season wasn’t without significant challenges.

Across the region volumes were low, there is good colour in the must, sugars are good but not excessive, and alcohol levels will be comparatively modest.

This should mean ’balanced, elegant wines’, as Terry Hall of Napa Valley Vintners put it.

The 2010 season was exceptionally cool and long, with some wineries leaving parcels until November. It was a year of extremes for growers, with prolonged coolness, intense heat spikes in August, and monsoon-like rainfall in late October which interrupted a much-needed Indian Summer.