“Was I deceiv’d? or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?” —John Milton, “Comus,” A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634
“Silver lining” can be a beautiful metaphor to illustrate how two seeming opposites can lead to something positive and new. In the same way, it’s often said that with adversity comes growth, or something to that effect, but I do think that a more neutral statement is likely to be more accurate. “With adversity comes change.” Surprisingly, since the beginning, change has been a constant at Cain. Surprising, to me, that is, because from the beginning of my time with Cain, my goal has been not to change, but to maintain, to foster continuity and tenure for the vines, the people, the wine, Cain Five, and most of all, the Cain Vineyard.
“The Glass Fire truly had a silver lining … it gave us the chance to re-imagine the future. … We need to continue to look for these ‘silver linings.’ Sometimes they aren’t obvious … sometimes they take a long time to find … but, if you allow a sable cloud to ‘turn forth her silver lining on the night,’ then Cain will continue to prevail.” —Katie Lazar, Cain Vineyard & Winery, 2025
Seen from a distance, a great distance, one might say we’ve succeeded. Jerry and Joyce Cain began this project in 1980, and the first Cain Five was conceived with the 1985 vintage. Now, forty years later, we are poised to harvest and vinify the 2025 Cain Five. This will be the work of folks who have tended the Cain Vineyard for decades.
When I arrived in 1990, I was immediately faced with the challenge of replanting the Cain Vineyard. Almost all of the vines were growing on the ill-fated AxR rootstock, destined to fail due to the insect, Phylloxera vastatrix, already deforming their roots. We knew we would have to replace these vines, and we thought that we could greatly improve the vineyard, not only through healthier plants, but moreover, through better choices of rootstocks, varieties, plant material, planting density, trellising, irrigation, drainage, and erosion control. It was a silver lining.
Along with the replant, change came in the form of our Cain Concept—The Benchland. As a wine, the Cain Concept was a success, but the greatest gift the Cain Concept showed us was just how distinctively different our Cain Five was from the wines of those classic vineyards growing on the floor of the Napa Valley. It was a silver lining.
Had I read Frank Schoonmaker more closely, I would have known that he had predicted this long ago:
“… the valley vineyards of Napa … can produce, notably from the Cabernet, red wines as well-balanced and soft and sound as any in California. … The Napa Valley, to sum up, is a remarkable red wine district; the Mayacamas Mountains (or Napa-Sonoma hills) are likely to prove, when properly exploited, one of the great wine districts of the world.”—Frank Schoonmaker and Tom Marvel, American Wines, 1941
The Glass Fire of 2020 is certainly the most traumatic moment in the life of the Cain Vineyard thus far. In taking so much of the vineyard, it has given us the chance to put into practice all that we’ve learned over the past forty years. Where certain rootstocks and varieties have done well, we’ve replanted similar, but even healthier plants and in a better configuration. In other places, we’ve replaced one variety with another variety that has done well in similar soil. The opportunity to plant the Cain Vineyard for the third time is, after all, a silver lining.
In my experience, the soils and climate of Northern California have little to do with the classic wine regions of France, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, the Loire, and the Rhône. Specifically, the Cain Vineyard has nothing to do with Bordeaux. So, I’ve always wondered which varieties might be best suited to growing here. For more than two decades now, we’ve been thinking about global warming, and our Cain Vineyard in the context of impending climate change. The Glass Fire gave us a huge window of opportunity to rethink the Cain Vineyard with an eye toward the future.
In 2025, with the third iteration of the Cain Vineyard, we’re preparing to begin the next chapter. Not only are we looking forward to the most detailed and precise reading yet of the Cain Five, we’re also exploring the potential of several other varieties in the specific soils and climate of our site.
Through all of this, we can see the Silver Lining; it is clear that none of it would have been possible without two seeming opposites: Constancy and Change.
Yours in wine,
—Christopher Howell, Wine Grower
2025