Andrew Jefford Without the younger generation we'll lose farming as it exists here'

Airy, it was: a high saddle at the seaward end of the Mayacamas ridge. The newly planted vineyards splayed upwards from the crux of tracks that met there.

- Andrew Jefford

IN MY GLASS THIS MONTH I’ve always loved Rosemary Cakebread’s tender and expressive Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon and Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon, but this visit gave me a first taste of her Grenache: the 2021 from the Rossi Ranch in Sonoma. You’ll find her hallmarks of finesse, grace, subtlety and purity in this light, stealthy red. It’s layered with gentle strawberry – but the purring tannins (fermented with 25% whole cluster) help bring savoury resonance, too.

Smaller ridges, hazy fingers of blue and purple, broke the view down to San Pablo Bay. There was a picnic table close to the edge, with straw underfoot. A few orange and yellow calendula flowers had been laid carefully in its centre; ladybirds were discreetly mating on the clover. Idyllic? Maybe.

‘I worry about the younger generation,’ Gallica owner and winemaker Rosemary Cakebread said to me a few hours later. ‘It’s difficult for young people here in Napa even to buy a home, let alone a vineyard.