Wine Chronicles 2025: Dan Berger’s Year of Reckoning and Recalibration
By Tim Carl
Summary of Today’s Story: In 2025, Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles traced a pivotal year in American wine, highlighting challenges from climate change, economic pressures and shifting consumer tastes. His writing pushed against conventional wisdom, advocating for cooler-climate, lower-alcohol wines and calling out the “mediocratization” of wine driven by overproduction and formulaic “pop wines.” Berger also spotlighted overlooked varietals such as chenin blanc and zinfandel, while emphasizing the shared futures of Napa and Sonoma. Across both regions, his columns offered a clear-eyed yet hopeful roadmap for a wine culture in transition.
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Dan Berger spent 2025 doing what he has done for nearly five decades: poking at received wisdom, looking around the corner of the wine business and asking whether the bottles in front of us really match the stories we tell about them. Napa Valley Features became a central laboratory for that work, and by fall Sonoma County Features had joined the mix, giving readers access to a vantage point across the Mayacamas.
Taken together, his 2025 Wine Chronicles read less like a string of columns and more like a running field report from one of the biggest turning points in American wine. Sales are soft, inventories are swollen, younger drinkers are skeptical, fire seasons are longer and climate patterns less forgiving. His answer is not nostalgia. It is a steady argument for smaller, cooler, more precise wines and for a culture that takes joy, not jargon, as its starting point.
A Career’s Worth of Context
Part of what gives these 2025 pieces their weight is how much history sits behind them. Berger trained as a journalist, spent a decade with the Associated Press, then moved to Sonoma County in the mid-1980s to become business editor and wine columnist for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. In 1988 he joined the Los Angeles Times as full-time wine columnist and reporter, with his work syndicated nationally.
By the mid-1990s he left daily newspapers to launch Dan Berger’s Vintage Experiences, a weekly wine newsletter that still publishes, built around what he calls “wine recommendations without the absurdity of scores.” He has been writing about wine since the mid-1970s and today his byline appears everywhere from his own newsletter to national outlets and Napa Valley Features.
A few years ago, Napa Valley Features launched his wine column with an article by another well-known wine writer, Alan Goldfarb: “Dan Berger: The curmudgeonly dean of American wine writers,” a profile that framed his work as both historically grounded and sharply present-tense. The Wine Chronicles series builds directly on that foundation.
Today’s Word Puzzle:
Challenge your vocabulary with this week’s mystery word. Submit your answer in the poll, and check the bottom of the page for the correct answer.
Cabernets, Climate and the End of Easy Answers
Several 2025 pieces return to the grape that made Napa famous and now sits at the center of its dilemmas. In “Wine Chronicles: Five Decades of Napa Cabernet — A Vintage-by-Vintage Retrospective,” Berger walks through half a century of vintages to show how cooler, more modest years often deliver the most complex wines over time, especially when alcohol stays in check and acidity remains intact.
That theme reappears in “Wine Chronicles: Cool-Climate Cabernets Challenge California’s Big Red Legacy” and “Wine Chronicles: What Happened to Cabernet?” where he asks whether California’s benchmark red has drifted too far toward sheer ripeness and polish at the expense of structure, food-friendliness and aging potential. These columns arrive in a year when wildfires and smoke still loom over harvest, a reality Napa Valley Features highlighted in “Wine Chronicles: Napa Braces for the 2025 Fire Season,” which documents how the number of smoke-exposure days during harvest has climbed sharply in recent years.
Berger’s argument is not that cabernet is doomed. It is that the definition of “great” cabernet is shifting. In his hands, tricky cooler vintages are not write-offs but stress tests that reward careful site selection, canopy management and earlier picking. The most interesting future he sketches for Napa’s flagship grape is leaner, nervier and more transparent about place.
Oversupply, “Pop Wine” and a Market in Flux
Parallel to the climate and cabernet questions runs a blunt economic thread. Berger’s earlier column “Dan Berger’s Wine Chronicles: The Glut” set the stage by describing a “massive sea of wine” in California tanks and warehouses. In 2025 he continues that line of inquiry with pieces such as “Wine Chronicles: The Impact of ‘Pop Wine’” and “Wine Chronicles: Overpriced Wines — Who’s to Blame?”
Across those essays he connects a few dots:
An oversupply of bulk wine and planted acreage that outstrip current demand
A retail landscape increasingly dominated by formulaic, heavily marketed “pop wines” that emphasize sweetness, flavor engineering and instant recognition
A luxury tier where prices have floated away from intrinsic quality, supported more by brand mythology than what is in the glass
The result, in his telling, is a “mediocratization” of fine wine, where the middle becomes crowded with technically competent but indistinct bottles, and the real character, whether modest or grand, tends to live at the edges.
“There is no question that the current massive sea of wine that exists throughout California poses enormous problems for many wineries.”
— Dan Berger, “Wine Chronicles: The Glut”
For Napa and Sonoma producers already navigating declining per-capita alcohol consumption and shifting generational preferences, his columns read like a quiet alarm bell.
When Wine Gets Boring
Some of Berger’s sharpest 2025 writing is not about climate or economics but about boredom. In “ Wine Chronicles: Bored With Wine?” he takes on a taboo subject for any self-described wine obsessive: the feeling that too many wines taste essentially the same.
“Knowing wine should be loving it.”
— Dan Berger, “Wine Chronicles: Bored With Wine?”
Rather than blaming his own palate, he points to an industry that has converged on a narrow definition of “good” — ripe fruit, smooth texture, familiar oak signatures — and then reproduces it at every price point. That critique is expanded and sharpened in “Wine Chronicles: A Cynic’s Glossary of Wine,” a wry look at the euphemisms and buzzwords that can conceal as much as they reveal.
Those pieces pair naturally with “Wine Chronicles: Will Michelin’s Star System Work for Wine?” where Berger questions whether importing restaurant-style star ratings into wine would deepen understanding or simply layer another hierarchy of prestige on top of already fragile notions of quality.
In the 2025 Wine Chronicles Berger leaned on honesty, clear descriptions, context and pointed comparisons, encouraging readers to treat critics as guides, not referees.
Chenin Blanc, Zinfandel and the “Overlooked” Future
Even in a difficult market, Berger has spent much of 2025 arguing that some of the most inspiring wines sit far from the usual spotlight. “Wine Chronicles: The Invisible Renaissance, Part II” follows chenin blanc from its days as a maligned, bulk-wine workhorse to its current revival in the hands of growers who favor dry, minerally, age-worthy styles. One line captures both the history and the opportunity:
“Possibly no grape has been more disparaged than chenin blanc.”
In “Wine Chronicles: A Case for the Overlooked Wines of the World” he widens the lens to consider unfashionable regions and varieties that deliver character without the price inflation that afflicts more famous labels. Related columns such as “Wine Chronicles: Zinfandel’s True Worth,” “Wine Chronicles: The Depth and Versatility of Sangiovese” and “Wine Chronicles: Varietal Precision — Reds” continue this work varietal by varietal, pressing readers to look past comfort names and instead ask what a grape can actually do in a given site.
These interests carry cleanly across the county line. On Sonoma County Features, the SC Wine Chronicles debuted with pieces such as “SC Wine Chronicles: Rethinking AVA Boundaries” and essays on Sonoma’s “unfamiliar wines” that argue for a more flexible understanding of terroir and style as climate patterns shift. The cross-publication structure — Wine Chronicles in Napa, SC Wine Chronicles in Sonoma — lets Berger test similar questions on different landscapes.
Napa and Sonoma as “True Vinous Siblings”
One of the more philosophically pointed Napa Valley Features pieces, “Wine Chronicles: Napa and Sonoma as True Vinous Siblings,” pushes back against simplistic valley-versus-coast stereotypes. Instead of treating Napa as a monolith of plush cabernet and Sonoma as a diffuse mix of pinot, chardonnay and “value” reds, he emphasizes how much both regions share:
· A growing exposure to wildfire smoke and climate volatility
· A mix of legacy producers and new capital with very different time horizons
· A widening gap between everyday wines and luxury bottlings
Read alongside his Sonoma County Features pieces on AVA boundaries and lesser-known sites, that column starts to sketch a single, interconnected North Coast wine system rather than two rival brands.
Samples, Glass Pours and the Way We Actually Drink
Several 2025 columns drill into the less-glamorous but highly consequential mechanics of how wine reaches drinkers. “Wine Chronicle: The Sample Game” looks at how critics and buyers can be misled by hand-selected sample bottles that might not match what ends up in retail channels. “Wine Chronicles: Ordering Wine by the Glass? Here’s What to Watch For” and “Wine Chronicles: The Case for Cooling Your Red Wine” move closer to the table, highlighting how storage, temperature and by-the-glass programs shape what people actually taste.
Why This Year of Wine Chronicles Matters
By the time we reach the end of 2025, Berger’s Napa Valley Features and Sonoma County Features columns add up to more than a series of tasting notes. They form a kind of map of a wine culture under pressure from climate, economics and changing consumer habits, and of the possibilities that still exist for wines that are honest about where they come from and what they are trying to be.
Napa Valley Features often keeps the focus on Napa cabernet, local economics and the North Coast’s shifting fire and climate realities. Sonoma County Features allows readers to watch as Berger tilts his lens toward appellation politics, unfamiliar grapes, and the everyday food and wine culture of a different but related county. Together, they offer readers a way to see this moment and the broader region not only through the lens of challenges but as a sorting — a chance for smaller, cooler, more precise wines to step forward and for drinkers to rediscover the pleasure that first drew them to wine.
For longtime followers of Dan Berger, that through-line feels familiar. For newer readers encountering him through Napa Valley Features or Sonoma County Features, 2025’s Wine Chronicles offer something rarer: a voice that has watched American wine grow up, now asking sharp questions about where it goes next and inviting everyone at the table to taste along.
We look forward to hearing more from Dan in 2026.
—
Tim Carl is a Napa Valley-based photojournalist.
Wine Discovery:
2023 Betty’s Vineyard Chenin Blanc ($35, 487 cases) — Produced by Bruce Devlin at Ballentine Vineyards in St. Helena, this estate-grown white reflects both history and site. The vineyard, planted in the early 1970s and still Napa’s largest chenin blanc acreage, lies just steps from the winery. The 2023 vintage opens with nectarine, honeysuckle and wet stone, giving way to pear, pineapple and lemon curd on the palate. Fermented in stainless steel and partially aged in Hungarian oak, it offers crisp citrus acidity and a clean, mineral finish. At 13.8% alcohol with high acidity, it’s bright yet structured. Pair with goat cheese salad, grilled shrimp or Vietnamese spring rolls. — Tim Carl Review
Today’s Polls:
This Week's Word Challenge Reveal:
The correct answer is B: “Movement of soil due to freezing.”
Cryoturbation, also known as “frost churning,” refers to the natural mixing of soils caused by repeated freeze–thaw cycles. Most common in cold or periglacial environments, it plays a key role in how soil horizons form and shift over time. While Napa and Sonoma are not permafrost zones, some higher-elevation vineyards and cooler subregions — such as Carneros — may experience limited freeze–thaw activity that subtly affects soil structure and root dynamics, offering insight into long-term terroir development.
The term combines the Greek “kryos” (cold) with Latin “turbare” (to disturb) and entered scientific use in the early 20th century, especially in studies of periglacial landscapes. Though best known in Arctic and alpine soils, cryoturbation has become a valuable concept for understanding soil evolution, carbon storage and plant–soil relationships — all of which matter when interpreting vineyard performance over decades.
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The views, opinions and data presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or perspective of Napa Valley Features or its editorial team. Any content provided by our authors is their own and is not intended to malign any group, organization, company or individual.
Good update for a tough year in the wine world. Thanks to both Dan and Tim for their observations and teaching here. Had not heard of Betty's wine...Interesting.
Thank you for the very nice year’s summary.