As one year ends and another begins, I can’t shake the urge to reflect. So, instead of bucking it, I’ll embrace it. Here’s the Napa Insider: Year in Review. As with any roundup, there’s lots of ground to cover, and only so many words, so this isn’t meant to be all-inclusive, just some notable mentions.
The year 2011 brought many firsts. One of the most celebrated would have to be the Napa Valley Film Festival, which hosted its inaugural five-day event in November. I’m still recovering from the bevy of events that spanned from Napa to Calistoga, with wine pavilions, cooking demonstrations, countless VIP parties, more than 100 film screenings and celebrities galore. The festival reported total attendance of approximately 25,000 people (5,000 unique visitors), with 50 percent concentrated in Napa, 25 in Yountville, and 12.5 in St. Helena and Calistoga. More than 600 cases of wine were poured.
“There was a noticeable increase in foot traffic along the Riverfront and at the Historic Napa Mill. Business owners were happy and enthusiastic about the spike and look forward to seeing how this new cultural event impacts downtown Napa over the next few years,” says Sara Brooks, general manager of the Napa River Inn. I suspect this fest is here to stay, the perfect antidote to the off season.
October marked the 30th consecutive Cheers! to Taste social. During that time, the organization grew from a few hundred members to more than 7,000 hospitality professionals, with more than 30,000 industry attendees at the monthly networking events held throughout Napa Valley.
Then there were the sad send offs: While locals continued to mourn the loss of St. Helena’s Martini House, more closures followed. First AKA Bistro and then Cindy Pawlcyn’s Go Fish. Fans of Pawlcyn were placated when Go Fish transformed into her Mediterranean-influenced Brassica. Other newbies included La Condessa, Alex and Terra Restaurant’s new swanky bar space.
Certain passings have the respective townsfolk atwitter, such as the closing of Epps Chevy in St. Helena and the potential closure of the 144-year old Oakville Post Office.
In other town news, St. Helena’s new Chamber of Commerce president, Pam Simpson, jumpstarted her tenure with a relocation and refashioning of the St. Helena Welcome Center in November. Downtown Napa opened its new Welcome Center in April, and it’s oh-so-inviting with plush seating, aerial maps, locally grown and crafted artisanal products, public use iPads and free Wi-Fi that are hard to ignore. Calistoga’s Art Center got a new home, right next to the Napa County Fair Association. The center hosted its first-ever theatrical production, Sylvia, along with a “Paint Out,” aimed at engaging the community in the local arts scene.
Last year stands out as when the Napa Valley community stepped up to support initiatives that mattered to its inhabitants. When locals got word the Bale Grist Mill was listed as one of the many parks set to close as part of the state park closure initiative, the community banded together to form a volunteer committee to keep the mill afloat. The 50-member Napa Valley State Parks Association is working to raise as much as $100,000 per year to keep the Mill open, with fund-raisers including the Harvest Dinner, Old Mill Days and Pioneer Christmas.
Community members united to form the Coalition for the Napa 9/11 Memorial Garden. The group moved forward with plans to build a memorial commemorating the September 11 attacks by trucking six World Trade Center beams from New York’s Kennedy Airport Hangar 17 to Napa. Local artist Gordon Huether and landscape architect Gretchen Stranzl McCann are donating their talents, among many others in the community. The coalition held a dedication at the future site (west of Main St. adjacent to Napa Creek) on the 10-year anniversary of the attacks, and is at work on a fund-raiser planned for January 26 at Huether’s Hay Barn Gallery. The memorial is set for completion this year.
Last year was also a monumental year for Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP), as the organization celebrated its 20-year anniversary. Harvest was more of a nail-biter. The year began with a wet winter and spring, with drops falling well into June, giving the region one-third above the normal amount of rainfall—and more came in October. The former set the table for a delayed bloom, disrupted fruit set and resulting shatter in areas around the region. The year was also marked by a cooler-than-average growing season and later-than-average harvest, with some around the valley reporting crops were diminished by more than 30 percent.
Stu Smith, of Smith-Madrone, says, “From what I hear from friends and neighbors, and what my gut says, this may be one of the shortest crops in the Napa Valley for the last 20 years. On [Spring] mountain, nobody was willing to harvest under-ripe grapes for expediency. We were willing to gut it out and not compromise. It was hard, but we absolutely got what we needed. We may be tired, but we’re feeling very good about the quality of the wine.”
Chris Phelps, winemaker for Swanson, adds, “I’ve been making wine in Napa for 30 years, but this is the first time I harvested 70 percent of all reds, including all Cabernet Sauvignon and our best lots of Merlot, in just nine days. In this very cool, Bordeaux-like vintage, we waited out rain events and chose our harvest windows very carefully. Bottom line: This is the vintage I’ve been waiting for since 1999.”
Olive crops stand to be impacted by the weather, as Dino Dina of Howell Mountain’s Cimarossa Vineyards shares, “Normally we’d get between 200 to 250 gallons of oil. We won’t know until we get the olives in the bin, but we’re expecting more like 80 to 100 gallons for the vintage. The quality is the same, but there’s less of it.”
Like all new years, while it’s nice looking back, it’s the future that holds our potential, so let’s roll onward. Let me know what the year holds for you. Here’s to a fruitful 2012.
