Larkmead Vineyards: Single site, multiple terroirs

2017 will long be remembered for the horrific fires that devastated parts of the Napa Valley in October. Not only were wineries and homes completely destroyed, many winemakers had not finished picking and their grapes were affected by smoke taint. The other issue was heat spikes early in the season and again in September that stressed the vines. Petroski made only 130 cases of The Lark, less than half the amount he’d made the year before. Yet this barrel sample is a long, intense and brooding wine, with racy sweet fruit and savoury herbal notes.

This is a rockstar vintage for Napa Cabernets. Cool weather in August prolonged the growing season and harvest, which translated into intense, deep wines that have expansive aromas, seductive textures and soft tannins. The Lark illustrates how much Petroski has evolved the style to one of freshness, purity and focus, driven by its distinctive terroir. Layers of aromas range from damp earth and tobacco to lavender and subtle dried herbs. Flavours of dense dark berries and minerals are joined on the palate by smooth, polished tannins, good acidity and a long finish—you won’t want to spit this wine out. What stands out is its authoritative structure. This won’t be released until 2020.

2015 was a brutally hot drought year with more than 20 days over 100°F, including during harvest. It has produced both stunning, voluptuous wines and not so good ones from sunburned grapes. At Larkmead, yields were down about 20% and the style of The Lark took another leap to more complexity, finer tannins and a longer finish. The aromas are more perfumed with violets and cassis, while the flavours are deeper, purer and more red-toned, with a distinctive briary and mineral element that’s rustic in a good way. The structure is more linear and refined.

The third year of drought had a warm growing season with no heat spikes. The result was an abundant crop and suave, silky-textured wines with excellent acidity and energy but less power and structure than in 2013. Expect The Lark to be ready sooner. The layered aromas include cassis, graphite, cocoa, spice and bright fruit. My overall take is a purer, more transparent and lifted wine than in previous vintages, as though Petroski was just beginning to hit his stride with this cuvee. The wine is lighter in colour than other vintages, with clear cassis notes and dark, very mineral flavours, along with a more elegant, polished texture.

The year was touted as a great vintage for structured Cabernets in Napa, and The Lark has the kind of density and brooding power found in top examples. 2013 was the year winemaker Dan Petroski shifted the wine from a barrel selection to a vineyard designate. The wine comes from a small parcel of vines on Bale loam that’s surrounded by more gravelly soil. The vines are exclusively the 337 clone, which makes denser, more fruit-forward wines with a floral character. This is exceptionally aromatic, balanced and savoury, with an almost juicy element to its pure fruit and cedary flavours. You can see Petroski’s philosophy in the tannins, which are less rustic and more refined.

After a hiatus during 2010 and 2011, The Lark was back in 2012 - this was the vintage where Petroski began shifting it to a vineyard designate wine, a process that was finalised in 2013. 2012 was a warm vintage that produced a lot of soft, almost mushy mid-weight wines whose quality hasn’t measured up to the early hype. Yet some producers made brilliant Cabernets that are open and seductive, and The Lark falls into the latter camp.&nbsp;</p> <p></p> <p>It’s intense, bright and berryish, almost juicy, with chalky tannins and a softer, more luxurious texture than earlier vintages. Wisely, it was aged in less new oak. Production was 290 cases, three-times the amount made in earlier years.

The best of the three early vintages I tried is all blackberry and blueberry fruit with smoky mineral-and-liquorice flavours and silky-smooth tannins. It shows more freshness, brightness, and complexity than earlier examples, which may be due to the cool vintage, though 2009 was not as cold as 2010 or 2011. Summer and early fall brought no extreme heat events, but there was heavy rain in mid-October. Like the previous two vintages, this was aged in 100% new French oak barrels.

At first, this vintage was thought of as one of Napa’s best for Cabernet because of its textbook growing season. Most wines showed a plush richness even in the barrel, but later many of them seemed monolithic, postcards for Napa's sometimes over-the-top Cabernets. The Lark has more refinement than many of them, with an edge of rusticity. Though it's powerful, dark and savoury - a classic Napa Cab with pure, heady fruit - it also has good acidity and drive. It belongs to what Dan Petroski, who became winemaker in 2012, refers to as The Lark’s George Foreman phase. There are only 23 bottles left!

This is the first vintage of The Lark, one of the winery’s limited-production Cabernets, with only 88 cases produced. It started as a selection of the best barrels in the cellar, with the idea that it would only be made in top vintages. This one is a big flavour, high impact wine. Inky, dense, plush and ripe, it’s very Napa sunshine in style, with a bit of spice but also thick body and a touch of rusticity, and you can still feel the alcohol and tremendous tannins.

Since 2013, Larkmead has been offering this special cuvee as their auction lot at the annual Napa Premiere barrel auction and at Auction Napa Valley. It comes from one part of the same parcel of vines whose grapes go into The Lark. The east side of the parcel makes more tannic wines, while grapes from the west side, with a richer soil profile, make softer, plusher, more elegant ones. While the Lark is a blend of the two, The Lark Ascending comes only from the west side, where the grapes ripen more slowly. Tasted from barrel, the 2017 is deep, dark and rich with a more voluptuous finish than the same vintage of The Lark. The 2016 was better.

Only one barrel of 2011 Solari was made, and it was never released - hardly surprising considering that 2011 was the most difficult vintage in decades. There was rain at the beginning of the growing season, followed by a cold, damp summer that encouraged botrytis, and foggy, damp harvest conditions. Yields were low and serious sorting was essential. Larkmead picked after a second rainfall and opted not to produce any of their top cuvees. That said, the 2011 I tasted was dark and intense, with bright herbal notes and an incredible linear structure. Which just goes to show that terroir wins out.

The first vintage of Solari was 2001, and since 2007 it has been made from the estate’s oldest vines in a parcel located only 200 metres from The Lark, but with different soils, and aged in 100% new French oak. 2010 was one of Napa’s longest and coldest growing seasons in decades - although 2011 was colder - with a heatwave at the end. Yields were low and grapes that usually go into The Lark were included in this Solari. It’s a huge, dense wine yet balanced and seamless, with rich, plump blackberry fruit and an almost citrussy acidity.