2024 was a classic Napa growing season with plenty of sunshine and warmth. Antonio Galloni, of Vinous, writes "As exciting as the 2023s are, I have no doubt that 2024 will be better for some, perhaps many Estates" and we share his enthusiasm for what 2024 has in store.

The year began with ample rain through the winter and into the late spring, setting the vines up with full, generous canopies — leaf cover that would matter more than we knew at the time. The warmth that followed was steady, with a few heat spikes in July and October. Those canopies turned out to be the difference. As Chris Cooney, who leads our winegrowing, puts it: "With that consistent heat we had smaller berries, and the leaf-area protection became really important late in the season — to protect the fruit and preserve not only the tannin but the fruit quality, keeping the freshness and not getting any baked flavors."

Our Estate vineyards thrived during this growing season. At Moonracer, our misting systems above the canopies helped to cool down the fruit zone by as much as ten degrees during the warmest days and prevented the grapes from losing moisture. The extra tank space at Houyi allowed us to harvest the entire vineyard in just a few days before the last heat wave, helping to preserve freshness in the wines. At Farella, the vines are approaching 30 years of age, and they remain undaunted by the swings Mother Nature has in store. Finally, the October heat gave the last push this cooler site needed towards perfect ripeness.

The 2024s came into the cellar at a moment of transition for our winemaking team, harvested and fermented under the guidance of Benoit Touquette and blended by Kelly Fields and Chris Cooney. Together they took the time in the cellar to taste and retaste each lot, trying to understand and capture the ever-elusive "sense of place". For Kelly, it is less about flavor and more about texture: "Each site is texturally unique, and that's where the difference comes from for sense of place — versus the fruit profile, because that's going to be very changeable, influenced by the vintage, whereas the texture is consistent. It's just how you showcase it."

Overall, the warmer vintage brought more richness and opulence — wines that are, in Chris's words, "less iron fist, more velvet glove." It was also a year that let Cabernet Franc shine. As Chris describes it, the variety "had a little more lushness and a little less of the savory character" in the warmer season.

If 2024 had a lesson, it was balance. The warmth of the growing season gave these wines their richness and generosity; the canopies, the misters, and the winegrowing tailored to each site gave them their freshness. As Scott put it, "the warmth of the vintage comes through… but there's still a nice brightness, maybe a little bit of the best of both worlds."

The Tempest
The Tempest is historically a Merlot dominant proprietary blend, but in 2024 it leans further into Cabernet Franc than it ever has. The warmth of the year drew out the variety's brightness rather than its herbal edge, and it settled easily alongside the Merlot — a fresh, approachable wine that some of you will recognize as a nod to a Franc-driven blend from our past.

Farella Estate
Mornings here stay cold until around ten, when the sun climbs and the day turns quickly warm. The Cabernet Sauvignon from this site tends to have more of a savory character, full of dark fruit and earthiness. The Merlot here sits in the lower vineyard on diatomaceous earth — a pale, chalk-like soil left by an old lakebed, unusual not just in Napa but almost anywhere. The resulting wines carry a depth and power we struggle to find in Merlot elsewhere, without losing its cooler, red-fruited character. In 2024 the Merlot was just over a fifth of the blend, giving the Cabernet a fuller, more welcoming middle. Overall, this wine comes across as the most elegant of the three Estate wines, with plenty of freshness.

Moonracer Estate
Moonracer, on Wappo Hill in the Stags Leap District, is almost all Cabernet and yet holds most of Napa within a single hillside — vines from four to twenty-five years old, every exposure around the compass, steep ground and flat. Scott likens the blending to a puzzle: "Moonracer is much like the site itself — I sometimes say it's a decades-long game of Tetris, trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together. Some of that early work and investment is starting to show in the glass." 2024 is where it shows. The misting system earned its keep, protecting the fruit through the hottest days and leaving the wine with a juiciness and freshness that warm vintages here have not always allowed.

Houyi Estate
This is our third vintage since we took over its farming. From a distance the vineyard looks uniform, every row facing the same way, but the soils beneath it vary far more than the eye suggests, and the wine carries that hidden variety as layers — a precision underneath a real softness. Of the three Estates, it is the most immediately giving, and is at the same time the densest.

Heavenly Questions
This Cabernet Franc built around Houyi's oldest block is the reason we are planting more Franc on Pritchard Hill. This varietal can be difficult, but on this site provides such depth, while at the same time having an inviting richness to the mid-palate. We aged this wine in oak with a portion moved into concrete eggs halfway through to preserve freshness. The 2024 Heavenly Questions is true to the typicity of the Cabernet Franc varietal, aromatic and vibrant, while the warmer vintage provided more of the "yum factor." It's a unicorn.