My tasting with Mark Aubert was one of the most anticipated visits of my first year reviewing Napa wines for Robert Parker Wine Advocate. Having read years of previous reviews—and sampling the occasional bottle along the way—I had high expectations for the wines. This was an opportunity to look at Aubert's 2020 Chardonnays from bottle (there were no 2020 single-vineyard Pinot Noirs released) and take a pre-bottling look at the 2021s.
Despite the French-sounding surname, Aubert himself is as American as they come. His family moved from Sacramento to Napa in the 1960s to be closer to wine country. His father was a pharmacist in St. Helena with a small vineyard (longtime fans may remember the Petite Sirah and Cabernet Sauvignon Aubert made for his father under the Rockland label), and Aubert graduated from Fresno with a degree in fermentation science in 1985. “Growing up in Napa in the 1970s was very different than it is now,” he smiles.
Aubert succeeded Helen Turley at Peter Michael and Colgin, founding his own label in 1999. The focus is on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, largely from Sonoma, but Aubert’s roots are in Napa, as is the winery, off the Silverado Trail near Calistoga (the former August Briggs facility). He and his wife, Teresa, who manages the winery's business affairs, recently purchased two acres next door to enlarge the winery. Aubert says he’s hoping to acquire the neighbor’s additional adjacent 14 acres to plant to Sauvignon Blanc. With the increased awareness of fire risk in this part of the valley, Aubert thinks more whites will be planted in the area.
In 2020, Aubert bottled fewer wines than normal. There’s no Eastside Chardonnay in 2020, as a frost in March crisped all the shoots, and the resulting yields were down by 70%. Aubert decided not to bottle it. Yields were reduced by frost at some other sites as well. It was a dry year with no major heat spikes, yielding concentrated fruit, said Aubert. But the big story of 2020 was smoke. “It was hazy for two or three weeks with the smoke,” said Aubert. “But we just went out and said, ‘We're going to make our wine the same way.’” Aubert didn’t bottle any single-vineyard Pinots from the vintage, but the Chardonnays are largely their usual dramatic selves.
The Chardonnays are whole-bunch pressed, briefly settled, barrel fermented and matured in barrel for 10–12 months, then finish their maturation in tank for two months prior to bottling—an ideal time frame in which to taste them. Aubert claims that finishing in tank allows him to bottle with lower sulfur levels, somewhere around 80 to 90 parts per million. “Overuse of sulfur can create reduction that masks vineyard character,” he said. “I've never filtered an Aubert Chardonnay.”
The 2021 Chardonnays reviewed here were tasted as tank samples when I visited in November 2022. The 2021 Pinot Noirs had already been bottled. Coming off 2020, Aubert described 2021 as a winemaker’s dream. “Not really any big heat waves, but with the drought and soils being drier, you get nice, concentrated grapes. Pretty textbook-perfect vintage. Good yields for Chardonnay. [If] we get three tons per acre, I’m happy. Look at the color, the wines are electric, yellow-green.”
The Aubert Chardonnays are big (typically 15% alcohol), flavorful wines, dominated in their youth by ripe fruit flavors and balanced acidities—despite being aged in as much as 75% new French oak—wines that epitomize their West Coast origins. Personified, they’re the All-American, stereotypical California pinup on the surface, yet they have sufficient depth and complexity to get into Ivy League colleges and acquire layers of greater richness and discretion with age. Even if you don’t think that’s your type, there’s virtually no denying the matinee-idol-meets-deep-thinker appeal these wines possess.
Regarding the Pinot Noirs here, while Aubert said, “We like ’em to match the Chardonnays. They need to be big and rich and hedonistic,” the 2021s—at least at this stage, to my palate—show an unexpected degree of restraint. Whether because of genetic material (budwood selections from Calera and Vosne-Romanée), site selection or vintage character, these are not massively endowed wines, despite spending 10–12 days on skins post-ferment to bring out what Aubert called, “voluptuous tannins.” All are aged in 50% to 60% new French oak from the same coopers Aubert uses for his Chardonnays, but they’re sourced from milder forests and made using lower toast levels to avoid over-wooding. The resulting wines are silky in feel and show ample ripeness, but their most impressive qualities are balance, harmony, structure and (presumably) an ability to improve over time in the bottle. Impressive.
All that said, I’m sure there will be readers who wonder why my ratings for the wines differ from those bestowed on previous vintages by my predecessors. I received some feedback on the same topic following my reviews of Spottswoode this past September. Following are some of my thoughts on the subject.
I think it’s important to understand the context of the reviews, which is why I’ve included long write-ups regarding the wineries and the circumstances of these tastings. Indeed, when conducting a tasting, one can only report on those individual bottles presented, with some reference to other bottles of the same vintage previously tasted for additional context (as I did in the case of the 2013 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon).
When my ratings and reviews diverge from those previously published by RPWA, this is only to be expected. I’m not the same taster as my predecessors, and I did not taste from the same bottles at the same point in time. None of our reviewers are locked into parroting previously published viewpoints, and it is entirely possible—even likely—that if we were to repeat these tastings in the future that the scores and reviews would again differ. Such is the subjective nature of wine appreciation and the variation inherent in individual tasters and in the evolution of fine wines. That said, I do reference some of the previous reviews in my own reviews, and readers on the website can easily access all of our prior published reviews.
My aim is to describe the wines as I see them on the day, particularly in the context of a producer-specific tasting and how they compare to each other, and provide guidance on when I believe the wines will be at their best. The ratings are meant to reflect that as well, with a bit of hedging built in by using the + sign, which indicates a conservative score with potential to increase with additional cellaring. I would always rather consumers be pleasantly surprised at how good a wine is relative to the review than be disappointed by one, so the higher up the scale one progresses, the more difficult it is to achieve each additional point.
Over the past five-and-a-half years with RPWA, I’ve found my scoring tends to be a bit more conservative than that of my immediate predecessors, both in Napa (LPB) and in the Rhône (JD), at least at the highest end of the scale. That has not always been an easy adjustment for producers, but I have to be true to myself and my own beliefs regarding wine quality.
I remember Bob writing, “I know of no one with three or four different glasses of wine in front of him or her, regardless of how good or bad the wines might be, who cannot say, ‘I prefer this one to that one.’” In the end, that is why 100-point scores are (or should be) so difficult to achieve—as reviewers, we are constantly comparing the wines in front of us to those great wines we’ve experienced in the past. There are 10 points of Bob’s rating system reserved for “overall quality level or potential for further evolution and improvement,” and for me, this is easier to evaluate when dealing with mature wines or wines approaching maturity than for those requiring projections far into the future.
Wines are in a constant state of evolution, and a score represents only a snapshot of that particular moment in time, as perceived by the taster. As such, scores can change over the years, even wines that have at one point or another been rated 100 points. That state of “perfection” is not some absolute, immutable quality possessed by the wine.
If we consider the case of wines that evolve rapidly (such as many rosés, for example), they may be excellent wines that score in the low 90s when released and for a year or two or three thereafter. Yet taste one of those wines two decades later, and it will probably not be nearly so good. It may have certain characteristics that remind us that it was a high-quality wine—concentration, length of finish—but it may also be oxidized and pleasureless and rate considerably lower than when it was in its prime. The same holds true for wines that age at a slower pace, just with a longer time horizon.
This is admittedly a rather simplistic example of scores varying over time. In fact, there are many more variables that come into play—nonlinear evolution (i.e., wines that are more “open” or “closed” at different stages of their lifespans), closure integrity/uniformity and storage (to name a few that are wine-specific)—plus innumerable others that may occur at the taster level (mood, health) or at the intersection of taster and wine (glassware, prior wines tasted, atmospheric pressure, biodynamic calendar, etc.).
Given these convictions regarding the inherent subjectivity and nearly infinite variables that can impact a wine score, I have no reservations about re-rating a wine that scored 100 points and downgrading it. But I also have no reservations about re-rating a wine scored 98 and upgrading it, if warranted. That said, one of the keys to being a critic is consistency. If scores—and more importantly, tasting notes—vary wildly from one tasting to the next, it becomes impossible for consumers to align their tastes with those of the reviewer and know if that reviewer is helpful to them or not.
How this scoring variability (within reason) impacts the consumer and the wine trade is more about consumer behavior and psychology than an issue for the critic. If someone purchases a wine I’ve scored 100 points and is disappointed when it’s later reviewed at 98 points, they probably haven’t purchased the wine to drink and enjoy—either way, the wine should be highly enjoyable! They probably aren't reading the actual reviews and understanding what I’m expressing. And they probably aren’t developing their own tastes and preferences.
What they are doing is speculating based on a score, and they should either unload their stocks of that wine (if the review says it’s likely to be heading toward further decline) or hold their stocks of that wine (if the review is more reflective of a closed phase and potential improvement ahead). Either way, it is the written review that they should be paying attention to, more so than the numerical expression.
This has been said innumerable times over the more-than-four-decade history of RPWA, but it bears repeating: the description of the wine’s style, personality and potential carries at least as much importance as the critic’s score. Combined, the two together should provide enough information for readers to make buying decisions that suit their own tastes.
