Harlan Estate 2018

A first growth by design

Bill Harlan was born in Pico Rivera, California, raised in Whittier, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963. Before wine he traveled through Africa, sold life insurance, learned to fly, raced motorcycles, worked as a stockbroker and played a good deal of poker. In 1975 he and Peter Stocker founded Pacific Union Land Company, which began by converting rental apartments into condominiums. He later turned a run-down country club into Meadowood, the Napa Valley resort.

He first saw Napa Valley as a Berkeley freshman in 1958 and visited Robert Mondavi's winery in its opening week in 1966. In 1980 he traveled with other Napa vintners to the great estates of Bordeaux and Burgundy, a trip arranged through Mondavi's introductions. He came home with a goal to make a 'first growth' of California and a 200-year plan modeled on the family-owned châteaux and domaines that had passed from generation to generation.

In 1984 he acquired the land he had been looking for in the western hills of Oakville, on the eastern slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains. It had never been planted to vines. The property loops south in a horseshoe of volcanic soils, rising from about 225 to 1,225 feet, with the vines planted between roughly 325 and 525 feet in a band Harlan nicknamed 'The Tenderloin.' Most of the estate's roughly 240 acres remain oak woodland and forest.

The team that stayed

Harlan met three of his key people through Merryvale, the St. Helena winery he helped run: Don Weaver, who became the estate's director; the winemaker Bob Levy; and the French consultant Michel Rolland, who began advising Harlan in 1988 by one account. The vineyards were first planted by David Abreu; Mary Maher later took over day-to-day vineyard management.

Harlan began making wine in 1987, but the 1987, 1988 and 1989 vintages were never released. The first commercial vintage, the 1990, was not sold until 1996, at $65 a bottle, then among the higher prices for a Napa wine. A second wine, The Maiden, followed in 1995. The early vintages were made at Merryvale until the estate's own winery was ready; sources date it to the 1997 harvest or to 2002.

Cory Empting, who has worked at Harlan since about 2000, became director of winegrowing in 2008, with Levy continuing as an adviser. In April 2021, at 80, Bill Harlan named his son Will managing director of Harlan Estate and the family's other properties, while remaining founder and chairman. When the critic Lisa Perrotti-Brown tasted the new releases with the whole team in early 2022, Bill Harlan told her, 'The thing that makes a big difference in assuring continuity is continuity of staff.'

2018: a vintage Napa had not seen in decades

After the heat, wildfires and smoke of 2017, which forced Harlan to leave some grapes unpicked, 2018 was the opposite kind of year. A little winter rain and a mild spring led to a late bud break and an easy flowering that set large crops across the valley. Napa Valley Vintners reported crops 20 to 30 percent above average, and growers saw cluster weights rise by about 20 percent or more.

Summer was cool to warm rather than hot, with foggy mornings, sunny or hazy afternoons and chilly nights. Most Cabernet did not begin veraison until well into August. By the end of September, when Napa usually harvests, much of the fruit was not yet ripe, and some Cabernet was still hanging into the first week of November. Smoke taint was limited to a few high-elevation areas, mainly Atlas Peak and parts of Howell Mountain, from wind carrying smoke from the Mendocino Complex Fire.

Perrotti-Brown summed up the year as 'a type of vintage that Napa had not experienced for decades,' with a ripening curve that was 'gradual and steady.' Empting compared Harlan's two most recent vintages this way: 'I see 2018 is strength through confidence, while 2019 is strength through power.'

What the critics said

Perrotti-Brown first rated the 2018 from barrel in the Wine Advocate in January 2021, at 97-100 points, describing 'a wonderfully fragrant perfume of blueberry pie, chocolate-covered cherries, mulberries and black currant pastilles' and 'remarkable energy with compelling tension.' A year later she called it 'a real jaw-dropper' that 'doesn't just embrace the vintage's longer, cooler growing season; it owns it,' an 'elegant, sophisticated, cerebral face of Harlan' that departs from its 'rich, hedonic reputation.'

James Suckling gave it 100 points in May 2021, praising its 'balance and intensity.' Jeff Leve also gave it 100 in March 2021 and wrote that it 'is a contender for the finest vintage of Harlan Estate ever produced,' adding that Empting called it a perfect vintage. Another barrel-sample note found it 'flawlessly balanced' and compared it with the 2013, 'or is it closer to the 2016?'

How Harlan is made

Harlan is increasingly farmed without irrigation; by 2022 close to 72 percent of the vineyards were dry farmed, by one account. Under Empting's Vine Masters program, vineyard managers are 'invited to work a block for the rest of their lives.' Yields average about three tons per acre or less.

In the winery, only fully ripe berries are fermented, with native yeasts, after sorting by cluster, by destemmer and by hand. The grapes are destemmed completely and fermented as whole berries in open-top vessels without pumping over. The wine goes through malolactic fermentation in new French oak and stays in barrel for 24 to 36 months. Barrels are lined up with a laser sight and not racked until bottling.

Since 2004 Harlan bottles have carried a serial number and a randomly generated number tied to an RFID chip, which buyers can check on the estate's website. The label itself took 10 years to design; it was inspired by a 19th-century engraving and overseen by a retired U.S. Treasury engraver, Herb Fichter.

Sources disagree on the size of the vineyard. Most give about 40 acres planted, one gives 36, and another passage says plantings were extended to 16 acres in 2002 and 2004. Production is small: about 2,000 cases a year by most accounts, distributed in about 50 countries and sold through a mailing list. In October 2026 a US merchant listed the 2018 at $2,998.99 a bottle, and a fine wine investment platform quoted a 12-bottle case at $17,980; both are asking or market figures, not sales.

After 2018

Two vintages later, the estate changed course. In 2020 a fire 15 miles away on August 18 led the team to start picking about a month earlier than normal; weeks later the Glass Fire tore through the valley. The resulting wine was about 13 percent alcohol against a previous norm of 15, and the estate kept picking early in 2021 and 2022. 'I would call it a culture rather than a style,' Will Harlan said.

The 2018 therefore belongs to the older rhythm of slow, late ripening that Harlan has since moved away from, and Perrotti-Brown already saw in it a more elegant, 'cerebral' Harlan. The estate itself has been called one of 'the ten best wines of the twentieth century' by Jancis Robinson.

The numbers

Vineyard size

About 40 acres planted (one source says 36) on about 240 acres

Vineyard elevation

About 325 to 525 feet, on a property rising from 225 to 1,225 feet

Production

About 2,000 cases a year (one source: 1,200 to slightly over 2,000)

Barrel aging

24 to 36 months in new French oak

James Suckling

100 (May 2021)

Jeff Leve

100 (March 2021)

Wine Advocate

97-100 from barrel (Lisa Perrotti-Brown, January 2021)

Timeline

1. 1958

   Bill Harlan first visits Napa Valley as a Berkeley freshman.

2. 1966

   He visits Robert Mondavi's winery in its opening week.

3. 1980

   A trip to Bordeaux and Burgundy inspires his 200-year plan.

4. 1984

   Harlan acquires the Oakville hillside land and founds Harlan Estate.

5. 1985

   Planting begins on about 2.5 acres of land never before farmed for wine.

6. 1987

   First experimental vintage, never released.

7. 1988

   Michel Rolland joins as consultant, by one account.

8. 1995

   The Maiden, a second wine, debuts.

9. 1996

   The first commercial vintage, 1990, is released at $65 a bottle.

10. 2004

    Bottles begin carrying serial numbers and RFID chips against counterfeiting.

11. 2008

    Cory Empting is appointed director of winegrowing.

12. 2018

    A cool, late Napa season with a large crop; harvest runs late into the fall.

13. Jan 2021

    The Wine Advocate rates the 2018 barrel sample 97-100.

14. Mar 2021

    Jeff Leve rates the 2018 100 points.

15. Apr 2021

    Will Harlan is named managing director; Bill Harlan remains chairman.

16. May 2021

    James Suckling rates the 2018 100 points.

17. Feb 2022

    Lisa Perrotti-Brown tastes the 2018 and 2019 releases with the Harlan team.

The world in 2018

• Feb 6, 2018

  SpaceX flies its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time.

• Apr 27, 2018

  Kim Jong Un crosses into South Korea, the first North Korean leader to cross the DMZ since 1953.

• Jul 10, 2018

  Twelve boys and their soccer coach are rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand.

• Jul 15, 2018

  France beats Croatia 4-2 to win the World Cup in Russia.

• Aug 2, 2018

  Apple becomes the first public company valued at $1 trillion.

• Aug 20, 2018

  Greta Thunberg begins skipping school to protest inaction on climate change.

• Nov 8, 2018

  The Camp Fire ignites in Butte County, becoming California's deadliest wildfire.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Harlan Estate 2018 is number 23 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (23 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Harlan's first three vintages, 1987 to 1989, were never released; the estate still has them.
• The first commercial Harlan, the 1990, was released in 1996 at $65 a bottle.
• Bill Harlan planned the estate on a 200-year horizon, modeled on European wine families.
• The label took 10 years to design and was overseen by a retired U.S. Treasury engraver.
• Since 2004 every bottle carries an RFID chip and serial number that buyers can verify online.
• Barrels in the Harlan cellar are lined up with a laser sight and stay put until bottling.
• In 2000 a 10-vintage vertical of Harlan magnums sold for $700,000 at the Napa Valley's annual charity wine auction.