Napa Valley Vintners – the trade association which promotes the Napa Valley wine region – is to run a ‘future releases’ initiative to help support the employees and wineries of the famous region.
From 8th-10th September, over 100 Napa wineries will ‘open their cellars’ to ‘release’ their newest vintage of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, with customers able to reserve wines online from 8am PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) on Tuesday 8th September.
‘Be the first to access these limited wines and ensure the next vintage lands in your collection,’ says Napa Valley Vintners on its website.
‘Never before has Napa Valley come together to pre-release so many special wines.’
Echoing the Bordeaux en primeur campaigns, the hope is to drive sales for upcoming wines from the Valley’s wineries, and sees wines on show for the first time from the 2016, 2017 and 2018 vintages which have release dates from this autumn to 2022.
A huge number of producers are taking part including Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Cakebread Cellars, Darioush and Peter Franus Wine Company.
See the full list of wineries taking part and the wines they are releasing
In recent weeks northern California has suffered from devastating wildfires, including blazes near to California’s wine country such as the Hennessy fire to the east of Napa Valley and the Walbridge fire to the west of Healdsburg.
The challenge for wine producers has been to keep their 2020 harvest plans on-track and avoid potential smoke taint.
‘Harvest has just begun, and vineyard and winery crews have been able to safely move forward with harvesting white wine and early ripening reds’, commented Teresa Wall of Napa Valley Vintners.
Look out for the California Cabernet 2016 panel tasting in the December issue of Decanter.
