Dear Correspondents,

I hope that you will pardon the length of this. I want to share some thoughts in a format descended from the letter; not in a blog, nor, god forbid, in a micro-blog.

It is a strange and stunning time in Napa. It was more than 70 degrees in the sun Saturday, for the fourth day in a row. There were two grass fires in the lower valley on Friday. The afternoon air was filled with smoke, as it sometimes is in October, but never in February. Even two months ago, it was so dry that farmers were talking about turning on the irrigation in their vineyards to water the cover crops. Only ten years ago, cover cropping was still revolutionary. One of the powers that made it attractive in this land of ease and bounty was the cover crop's ability to soak up winter water accumulating in the vineyard soil. Rye grass could burn through a few inches of winter rain before the vines began their growth cycle and thereby helped impose a regime of scarcity, instead of plenty, on the awakening vines.

This year, no one knows what the consequence of this winter drought will be. Vineyard managers used to drawing unlimited amounts of water from their catch ponds will work in a new world.

You are thinking that last fall was doomed too. But it was not. It was simply a challenge. We tasted through all of our 2011 wines a few days ago with several colleagues, and a loyal, but unstintingly critical, supporter from Texas. He and some buyers were in town for the annual vintners' association premiere of the next releases. There is some trepidation in the valley for how these wines will be received. We have had two difficult late autumns in a row, with none of the heat we have come to expect to bring ripening to a roaring finish. Our tasting was revelatory. Our 2011 reds are beautiful. We have never had a class of such noble wines. Each is dark, intense, piercing. Each has aromatics that capture the attention and unfold in time. The wines are precocious, with a dancer's lightness. Both of these characteristics are unusual for us; and each one is surely some kind of reflection of the cool (and even wet, in 2011) culmination of ripening.

Are these two vintages anomalies, or the beginning of a new era here? So much is at stake, and no one knows. It is an amazing time to be working in Northern California. There is a fascinating sea change moving wave-like through the world of wine commerce too. New sommeliers and new journalists turn more and more attention away from ripe blockbusters or classic trophy wines to producers working in small operations, outside of conventional paradigms, on the periphery of the established geography.

In Phoenix, Tulsa, Tampa, I can count on a choice of Nerello Mascalese, and I stumble across bottle-conditioned sparkling wine from the Ardeche with delightful frequency. One can even see bursting through the crust of hardened soil a new orthodoxy, propagated by an eager and searching generation of somms and writers: one must have Etna, Trousseau Gris, grower Champagne. "Orange wine is the new White Zinfandel." Many of us working on the edge of the received paradigms in Northern California are caught in the light-house beam of this change too—and thereby benefit. This too is new: California not opposed to the Northern Rhone; in the new establishment, Arnot-Roberts is celebrated together with Ste. Epine. For me, the most blinding effect of this has been The Scholium Project's recent recognition in the list of semi-finalists for the James Beard awards. These awards represent the estimation of the gastronomic establishment at its most august and authoritative. The mention of Scholium in this group is a sign of a vast and deep movement within our world. How interesting, what a puzzle, if this movement in the world of commerce and reputation is somehow synchronous with one in climate and farming.

I will write to you again soon. We will offer a new release in two weeks and have events planned in New York and Napa to accompany it.