Outside of Yountville, there’s a section of road where the vineyards darken by five o’clock in January, just past the final tasting room before the hills begin to rise. In Napa Valley, this month is the quietest. The majority of the summer visitors to the valley have left, the crush is long gone, and the leaves have fallen. People were therefore surprised—in a good way—when a small, family-run vineyard in the hills above town announced a limited bottling linked to the area’s winter light festivals.
The timing wasn’t arbitrary. This time of year, Napa’s calendar becomes peculiar. The day following Thanksgiving, Yountville hosts its Festival of Lights, which transforms Washington Street into something more akin to a block party than a holiday custom. The Lighted Art Festival, which takes over Napa’s downtown for five weeks beginning in mid-January, draws tourists from as far away as Australia and Indonesia with its glowing sculptures and projection art along the riverfront. Winter WINEland, where dozens of Sonoma County wineries pour their library bottles for crowds that have come especially for January rather than in spite of it, takes place somewhere between those two events.
In light of this, the vineyard determined that a single-season release made sense. By most accounts, the wine itself doesn’t significantly differ from what the producer typically produces. The framing is different. A few barrels that are bottled ahead of time, labeled according to the season, and only released when the lights are on. The vintage ends in mid-February along with the Lighted Art Festival. In a market that typically wants everything available year-round, that kind of scarcity seems almost archaic.
There’s a feeling that Napa wineries are now more aware of what’s going on nearby. The actual winter festival circuit was left to towns like Yountville, Sausalito, and San Rafael for many years, as the valley’s identity was built almost entirely around food and wine. Gingerbread contests, parade floats, and lit boat parades. Strangely, wine country ignored that. It’s difficult to ignore how that has changed. Although it’s not a significant step, a vineyard linking a release to a light festival is an indication that the valley is beginning to view itself differently during the off-season.
It’s still unclear if this turns into a pattern. The phrase “we bottled it during a pretty time of year” can quickly become stale if every producer tries it. Limited releases typically succeed when there is a real story behind them. However, there’s a certain allure to a wine that lasts precisely as long as the lights. In January, when the valley is more in need of tourists than in September, it provides an incentive for people to drive up.
It’s easy to understand why a winery would want to capitalize on that energy when strolling along the Napa riverfront on a chilly January night, past the courthouse illuminated in projected color and families pushing strollers toward the next installation. The valley still has a wine-like scent. Every winter, it simply glows slightly differently for a few weeks, and apparently at least one vineyard thought that was worth bottling.