NAPA Valley Classification - First and Second Growths
By The World´s leading FINE Wine Magazines - FINE.
One of the world's major wine regions, Napa Valley, has never classified its wines. Anyone purchasing Napa Valley's best wines faces a hard task, because often their high price relies on the subjective estimation of just one critic.
Do the best wines of Napa Valley not deserve the same sort of recognition as, say, the classified French wines, which would make things clearer for consumers all over the world? We think so.
But what sort of classification system would suit the Napa Valley wines best? This is the question our Editors mulled over in the winter of 2008. We eventually came up with a solution in spring 2009.
In our view, the quality of the wine is what is most important to the average consumer, but the classification could not be based solely on this. To make the classification as plausible as possible, FINE Magazines decided to take all the most important elements into account. Hence, it is based on the wine's quality, its reputation and the price that reflects this, history, the estate's winemaking philosophy and terroir. We furthermore decided that in order to qualify for inclusion in our classification, a wine must have a minimum of 15 vintages on the market.
These are given a different weighting in determining the final rankings, as follows: the wine's quality 45%, its price 20%, the terroir 20%, the winemaking philosophy 10%, and history 5%.
"When we undertook this classification it was the quality of the wine that was by far the most important criterion to take into account. It is also, in our view, the only thing that is of real importance to the average consumer. After all, not even the best marketing campaign or a long, prize-winning history can turn a poor wine into a good one," said Pekka Nuikki, the Editor-in-Chief of American FINE Wine Magazine.
As our classification is founded on the views and assessments of the Editors of the International FINE Wine magazines, it is, of course, completely subjective. We also interviewed more than sixty wine professionals in the region and invited them to contribute their opinion as to which wines ought to be included in the first and second growth categories.
In total, we proposed 55 wines for classification into the first and second growth category, and just 11 were mentioned with regards to the first growth group - with 85 per cent of the votes going to just three wines. It was interesting to note the views of these professionals were pleasingly generic. This led us to believe that it may well be possible to find consensus on an official classification, which we hope will take place in the near future.
FINE´s NAPA VALLEY CLASSIFICATION
1st Growth
Harlan Estate
Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon
Colgin Herb Lamb Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
Bryant Family Cabernet Sauvignon
Araujo Eisele Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
Heitz Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
2nd Growth
Dalla Valle Maya
Abreau Madrona Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon
Pahlmeyer Red
Grace Family Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon
Joseph Phelps Insignia
Dominus
Opus One
Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon
Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon
Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon Estate
Stag's Leap Cask 23 Cabernet Sauvignon Proprietary Red
Rubicon Estate Rubicon Proprietary Blend
Read the full Story:
http://fine-magazines.epaper.fi/reader/?issue=8409;919160d5d654603a7aea5d746896a1e6;37
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