A Harvest Worth Waiting For: The 2025 Season at John Anthony Vineyards
In Napa Valley, every harvest tells its own story. For 2025, John Anthony Vineyard’s story is one of patience, perseverance, and promise. The growing season began with an early start and unfolded under ideal conditions. Warm days and cool nights contributed to the health and quality of our grapes, increasing their potential yields. The combination of ideal weather and healthy vines gave us early indications of balanced fruit with optimal ripeness, acidity, and flavor development. What followed through the growing season was attention and patience, especially as cooler temperatures created a waiting game as harvest arrived.
Harvest has officially come to a close, with all our Napa Valley fruit now in and fermenting in the tanks. It’s exciting to hear that our winemakers, Michael Abernathy and Jeff Kandarian, are anticipating what could be a third excellent vintage in a row. John Anthony Vineyards continues to be farmed by FARM Napa Valley, the first company that John founded in the 1990s, still with several of the same farmworker families tending our vines. Our estates span the length and breadth of Napa Valley with small-lot, hidden-gem sites in Calistoga to the north, Los Carneros to the south, Coombsville to the east, and three vineyards on the western border of the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley. These are intentionally farmed for the varietal and rootstock best suited to each diverse microclimate, soil type, and elevation.
North: Calistoga
Our northernmost site, the 10-acre Calistoga Vineyard, lies in Napa Valley’s Calistoga American Viticulture Area. As the warmest of our estates, our vineyard team harvested the first red grapes of the season here, marking the start of our red varietal picks. The site’s mineral-rich volcanic soils and warmer microclimate create rich, full-bodied wines with concentrated flavor and remarkable depth. Nestled on the northeast side of the city of Calistoga, this vineyard showcases the precision of our farming, as our vineyard team picks the highest quality blocks for the vineyard-designated John Anthony Calistoga Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, a powerful expression of this northern Napa Valley AVA.
South: Los Carneros—The Tale of Two Vineyards
For our vineyard team, Church Vineyard in Los Carneros remains a favorite site to harvest—and one of the most beautiful. Planted exclusively to Sauvignon Blanc, it is home to two distinct clones: Musqué and Western. Each vintage requires multiple picks to capture the best from every block. The aromatic Musqué clone is always the first pick, since it ripens earlier and typically has lower yields compared to the Western clone here.
Due to the vineyard’s cool Carneros location, harvest runs later than most Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. While many growers are finishing their picks, we’re often still weeks away. This year, our final pick at Church Vineyard was on October 16th, while most wineries picked Sauvignon Blanc in early to mid-September. For Church Vineyard, patience is key. We produce two unique styles of Sauvignon Blanc from this single site through careful vineyard management and meticulous winemaking. John Anthony Church Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc is barrel-fermented, offering balance, creaminess, a hint of oak, and depth. The John Anthony Carneros Sauvignon Blanc is fermented in stainless steel, offering vibrancy, clean texture, and refreshing acidity.
Just a mile away, Carneros Gap Vineyard represents the next chapter in the story of John Anthony Vineyards. Our newest vineyard site, following a recent replant by the FARM team, Carneros Gap is already showing extraordinary fruit. This harvest, we are sourcing Chardonnay and Syrah, with potentially a portion heading to this vintage’s John Anthony Reserve Syrah.
Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley
In the heart of Napa Valley lies The Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley, home to three of John Anthony’s estates: Crane, R&D, and Twisted Oak. Nestled in the foothills of Mount Veeder, our FARM vineyard team harvested Crane Vineyard in October, beginning with Syrah in the early weeks and finishing with Merlot at the end of the month. Twisted Oak and R&D Vineyards, both planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, followed later that month. These Oak Knoll sites sit along the southern end of the mid-valley floor, where balanced conditions produce Cabernets that are among the more elegant and understated from Napa Valley.
East: Coombsville
Coombsville Cabernet Sauvignon is always a highlight of the harvest season. These head-trained, dry-farmed vines have deep roots that require careful monitoring, handpicked at optimal ripeness to capture the deep black-fruit character and intensity these berries produce. The Coombsville AVA typically experiences gentle temperature increases in September and October, and timing is everything to achieve the bigger, more elegant profile that defines Cabernet Sauvignons from this site.
Looking Ahead
The 2025 season has reaffirmed what two decades of experience have taught us: great wines begin in the vineyards, guided by time and nature. Each pick brings us closer to crafting a vintage defined by heritage, precision winegrowing, and meticulous winemaking. A harvest worth waiting for, indeed.
Visit our tasting lounge in Downtown Napa to learn more about the 2025 harvest season and taste through our previous vintages, which have garnered multiple 90+ point scores.