It's demand. Pinot doesn't need an assist from global warming.

But I don't see the Cab thing ebbing, however. We're not French here. lol

 

Well, Cabs and Zins are a hell of a lot easier to cultivate than Pinots.

 

Any monkey can make Jordan.

 

Less Cab everywhere else will just drive Napa prices higher. Cab is king in the valley.

 

+1

I'm all for experimentation, but there's a reason over all these centuries why certain areas do well with certain grapes, and not others. Wine is terroir. A bad winemaker can screw up a fantastic harvest, a good one can salvage a so-so harvest, no one can save a bad harvest (I didn't say challenging, I said bad, challenging harvests can be the best, as folks know).

I do agree with M about the food thing and Cab.

 

And this is a wine fact.

 

Lots of terroir to expand for Cab but not a lot in "the Valley" if you mean Napa Ernesto.
Lake and Mendocino of course but one may have to go south to get anything approximating Napa terroir for Cabs.
And Pinot plantings outstrip Cabs in Napa and Sonoma, given Sonoma is huge county compared to Napa.
Quite a bit of the new Pinot vines are really going to be vineyard specific and very select though.
My brother has lived in Freestone and Occidental before his 30 years in Sebastopol and 10 in Calistoga and he
confirms coastal weather is changing and the soils, as varied as they are, are good.
Maybe it's just that I love Pinot.

 

Pinot is finicky, and you can't dance all over it, so I think there is more to love in it. Hell, "decent" Cab is eminently drinkable, not "decent" Pinot.

I can't see why far southern Monterey and into SLO counties won't start really hitting the Cab meter. You certainly start getting the temps and variability there that you do when you start moving northerly from Carneros. We should go nose around Happy Canyon one of these eons, too.

And let's give a shout out to some Oregon Pinots!

 

Are you guys implying that Cab grows in other places? Who knew! lol

I must lack the palate for Pinot. I need a good Zin or Cab to smack me in the mouth to appreciate it.

 

Only the Left Back.