Winemaker Joe Harden spent seven years earning his chops at Robert Mondavi Winery, learning alongside longtime winemaker Geneviève Janssens. In 2018 he moved across Napa Valley's Highway 29 to fellow Oakville producer Nickel & Nickel. Now,at just age 38, Harden makes two dozen single-vineyard, 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignons. This Bordeaux grape has been mapped onto the Burgundy model, and then turned up to 11.
The first vintage of Nickel & Nickel wines under Harden adhered to the winery’s existing house style, a more old-school approach that favored savory notes and sometimes rustic tannins. Before Harden, each wine was treated exactly the same through the vinification and aging, with the idea that by keeping the winemaking protocols the same, each vineyard would speak to its own terroir. In theory, that would work …
But Harden has slowly shifted away from that approach, feeling that different vineyards deserve different protocols, so each gets a chance to put its best foot forward. Gone is the one-size-fits-all approach during vinifications, with some lots seeing extended macerations, others less. After all, valley floor fruit offers a different fruit and tannin profile than mountain fruit—and Nickel & Nickel has the full range coming through its cellar. Native yeast ferments increase the variability as well.
“Fruit from the different sites is different, from thickness of skins to the character of the fruit to the structure and even the chemical makeup of the juice,” says Harden.
Nickel & Nickel's vineyards have also recently begun shifting toward regenerative farming. As in the cellar, the changes are site-specific. Vigorous valley floor vineyards require different farming than low-vigor mountain sites.
“And then in the cellar, the approach mirrors the approach in the vineyard,” says Harden. “Light tweaks as needed for each lot.”
Harden and assistant winemaker Phil Holbrook, whom Harden first worked with during his Mondavi days, have eliminated most sulfur additions, making only one after malolactic and then a touch-up before bottling. Rackings were reduced to just one per year during the average 20-month élevage; fining and filtering have been eliminated.
The number of coopers they source barrels from has been reduced from 30 to barely a dozen. Harden has upped the percentage of new oak on some bottlings to 60 percent, but overall dropped the toast level across the entire range and eliminated toasted heads to lessen the oak’s impact.
“As for oak, I prefer subtle barrels and light toast,” says Harden. “The idea is to just fill holes in the wine, while letting the fruit take the lead.”
Nickel & Nickel Napa Cabernet Tasting: Recent Vintages
Cleaning up the cellar has also been critical to the improvements here. The wines are much fresher and purer right out of the gate now, no more old-school rusticity.
All these tweaks resulted in a notable qualitative jump with Nickel & Nickel's 2021 vintage: All eight bottlings submitted for review earned outstanding ratings of 90 points or more.
Though not as strong as the 2021s, Nickel & Nickel's 2022 lineup is also well made. 2022 was severely compromised by a heat dome during harvest. Nonetheless, two of Nickel & Nickel's six 2022 bottlings earned outstanding scores, with the rest in the very good range. How a winemaker manages the difficult years is often more revealing than their high marks in strong vintages.
And a sneak peek at a couple of 2023s shows there’s more to come. Nickel & Nickel is adding a bottling from the Morisoli vineyard in Rutherford to the lineup. Morisoli has quietly been a source for excellent wines from the likes of Etude, Sequoia Grove and Beaulieu Vineyard over the years, and recently the family started making its own wine.
The 2023 Nickel & Nickel Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Morisoli Vineyard delivers a classic Rutherford profile, with a steadily moving beam of cassis and plum fruit gilded liberally with vibrant iris and violet notes. That aromatic range of the 2023s is one of the aspects that sets this potentially classic vintage apart.
There's a dramatic contrast between the Morisoli Vineyard bottling and Nickel & Nickel's Hawk's Cradle bottling, from the Diogenes Ridge vineyard on Howell Mountain. At an elevation of 1,600 feet, Diogenes Ridge is a mix of red Aiken and white ashy tuff soils and has been farmed by Harden and Holbrook’s own Salty Goats farming company since 2021. The 2023 Nickel & Nickel Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Hawk's Cradle leads with violet and iris aromas, but then the typical Howell Mountain tarry edge takes over, along with vibrant blackberry and black currant fruit, all backed by a lingering cast iron note.
Harden and Holbrook are also making small-production Cabernet and Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir under their Salty Goats wine label. Their Cabernet is sourced from a different block of the Howell Mountain. While the Nickel & Nickel version is from parcels on the red Aiken soil (introducing that cast iron note), the Salty Goats bottling sources from parcels spread over both the Aiken and tuff soils. The 2023 Salty Goats Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is racier and more overtly minerally in style than Nickel & Nickel's, with a strong, pleasantly nervy, ashy edge to its mulberry and blackberry fruit, along with the vintage’s highly pixelated iris, ink and violet aromas.
Different approaches to different sites. Different approaches to different blocks within a site. Learning to work with a vineyard’s individual characteristics, with less emphasis on an overriding house style. Harden and Holbrook have put Nickel & Nickel on a new upward trajectory, and their side project is one to hunt down as well. Ample kudos are well-deserved here.
Visit the Nickel & Nickel Winery and Tasting Room
Nickel & Nickel
Tours and tastings daily, $75–$200
Address: 8164 St. Helena Hwy, Oakville, CA 94562
Phone: (707) 967-9600
Website: farniente.com
Read more of James Molesworth's Winery Intels, hear his interviews with leading winemakers on Wine Spectator's Straight Talk podcast, and follow him on Instagram at @jmolesworth1.
