Appellation · United States
Napa Valley
California’s most prestigious AVA, and the reference point for New World Cabernet Sauvignon.
About Napa Valley
Napa is small by international standards — a fraction of Bordeaux’s planted area — but commands prices at the very top of the market.
Napa Cabernet is typically riper, fuller and softer-tannined than Bordeaux, with cassis, black cherry, cocoa and sweet oak, and alcohol commonly at 14.5% or above.
The valley contains numerous nested AVAs — Rutherford, Oakville, Stags Leap District, Howell Mountain, Spring Mountain — which distinguish valley-floor sites from mountain vineyards. Mountain fruit is generally more tannic and structured; valley floor is plusher.
Napa wines placed ahead of Bordeaux first growths in the 1976 Judgement of Paris tasting, an event conventionally credited with establishing New World wine’s international credibility.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Napa Valley AVA
- Type
- American Viticultural Area (AVA)
- Set by
- Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)
- Recognised
- 1981
- Regulates
- Origin only. It sets no rules about varieties, yields, ageing or winemaking.
Only where the grapes were grown, plus the percentage that must come from the named area. An AVA sets no varietal, yield, ageing or winemaking rules whatsoever — the single most commonly misunderstood fact about US wine labels.
An AVA regulates only where the fruit was grown and the percentage that must come from the named area. It sets no varietal, yield, ageing or winemaking rules.
Grapes
Wines from here
white
California Chardonnay
The style that defined "buttery Chardonnay" — ripe stone fruit, vanilla and cream — though the best modern examples are far more restrained.
red
Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
The New World Cabernet benchmark: ripe cassis and cocoa, plush tannin, generous new oak and high alcohol.
Climate
Warm days and cool nights, with fog drawn in from San Pablo Bay at the southern end. The valley gets progressively warmer moving north, which is why Carneros at the bottom grows Pinot Noir and Calistoga at the top grows powerful Cabernet.
These are influences on how a wine turns out, not determinants of it. Picking date, yield, vine age and every winemaking decision sit between the climate and the glass.
Places within it
- Howell Mountain — Napa’s first sub-AVA, above the fog line on the eastern ridge, making the valley’s most tannic Cabernet.
- Mount Veeder — Steep, cool, sedimentary slopes on Napa’s western ridge, and the coolest of the valley’s mountain AVAs.
- Oakville — The Napa AVA with the highest concentration of famous Cabernet vineyards, immediately south of Rutherford.
- Rutherford — The mid-valley bench that produced Napa’s most celebrated Cabernet Sauvignon, and the source of the phrase "Rutherford dust".
- Spring Mountain District — A cool, wet, wooded stretch of the Mayacamas above St Helena, and the wettest AVA in Napa.
- Stags Leap District — A small AVA under a line of volcanic palisades, whose Cabernet beat the Médoc first growths at the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Compared with
- Napa Cabernet vs Left Bank Bordeaux — The comparison the 1976 Judgement of Paris started, fifty years on.
What to eat, and how to serve it
Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.
Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Serve at 16–18°C (cool room temperature).
Try with steak, ribeye steak or roast chicken.
California Chardonnay
Serve at 10–13°C (lightly chilled).
Try with fillet steak, grilled chicken or asparagus.
Approximate centroid: 38.50°, -122.35°. WineHQ stores coordinates only where it has them, and does not estimate boundaries it has not sourced.
Sources
Sources consulted
- American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) — Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), US Department of the Treasury
- UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology — University of California, Davis