“More gentle ripening means deeper, more profound and complex flavors—a more complete wine.” —Chris Howell
Dear Friends of Cain,
We’d like to give you an update on the Cain Vineyard, how we’re doing, and some early thoughts about the 2023 growing season. We plan to send a few more as the year progresses.
It has been a gorgeous Spring here in the Napa Valley and especially up in the Cain Vineyard. With all the rain that we’ve received this Winter and Spring—more than five feet—the wildflowers are showing brilliantly against the vivid green of the grass.
For the vines, it has been a late Spring—this year’s buds are only just now unfurling themselves and beginning to reach for the sky. That’s perfect, because now, the early Spring rains have let up, the days are dry and sunny and warming up from the 50’s to the 60’s—truly perfect weather for budbreak.
A later budbreak means later ripening and a later harvest, in late September and early October, well past the hottest days of Summer that often come in August. More gentle ripening means deeper, more profound and complex flavors—a more complete wine. All in all, at the moment, this looks to be an excellent vintage. But it’s only May- the harvest is not in yet. The vines still need to flower and set their fruit, the grapes need to swell and ripen. We have more than five months to go and we don’t know yet what the Summer may bring. Even so, there’s every cause to be optimistic.
This January, Ashley and her crew planted many more thousands of vines—Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, replacing those lost to the Glass Fire in 2020. These, along with the many thousands planted last year and two years ago are all beginning to pop out of their buds now. Soon, whole swaths of the Cain Vineyard will be flourishing again, and we think, even better than before. It is an auspicious moment.
In August we plan to host a small group of our customers to come see these new vines for themselves. It will be the first time since the pandemic that we will hold an event in the Cain Vineyard. Please let us know if this might interest you. We’re looking forward to it!
For the harvest of 2022, Katie asked us for white wine to offer you as our next “OTO” -One Time Only. In the last week of April, we put it in bottles and now we can’t wait to get it into your glasses. We pressed it directly from whole clusters and racked it straight into a ceramic jar where it fermented and spent its whole life up to now. We bottled this wine “sur lie,” that is, directly from the jar into bottles – no racking, no pumping, no fining, no filtering, no more sulfites, no aeration, no nothing. It’s fresh, crisp, mouth-watering, savory, and ready to drink – perfect for your al fresco dinners this Summer. Serve well-chilled.
Cain has been particularly blessed to have a dedicated and persistent team. Several have been working together with us for more than twenty years. Last week, we recognized and celebrated the ten years that Matt Strayer has been contributing to Cain and the twenty years that Lupe Ramos has been tending our vines. It is people like this that help to realize the special place that Cain is.
Happy Spring!
—Christopher Howell, Wine Grower
2023