Wine styles shift slowly in America, often too slowly for consumers to catch the early signs. But at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, such subtle changes can be striking.

The four-day Chronicle event each January leads the calendar of significant annual American wine competitions. With nearly 5,000 entries, it is the largest as well, and winemakers, educators, sommeliers, retailers and journalists like me fly to the Cloverdale Citrus Fair in Sonoma County to act as judges. The entries are organized by price category and varietal without disclosing regional origin, vintage or producer. A group of three or five judges may spend most of a day tasting one price category of one varietal.

"The snapshot you get at the Chronicle competition is a clear picture of what is happening in the market," said Tim McDonald, a wine publicist and educator. He makes a point of judging here each year to stay abreast of trends. This year, a move toward lighter, more European-style wines was evident. McDonald sees a day coming when overwrought American wine will be a thing of the past. Based on the wines I tasted at the event, I agree.

Surprising Chardonnays

At this month's Chronicle competition, my five-person panel tasted, among other categories, Chardonnays priced $15.99 to $19.99 and Cabernet Sauvignons priced $25.99 to $29.99, swirling, sipping and spitting nearly 100 glasses for each type of wine. These are iconic American varietals at price points where wines should be better than average yet accessible to most wine lovers. Even so, I was surprised. Fewer Chardonnays carried the obvious vanilla flavors from new oak barrels. The Cabs, on the whole, didn't leave the telltale high-alcohol burn at the back of my throat. Many of the wines offered a variety of subtle, specific aromas. I rarely wrote "jammy" as a descriptor. Less oak, less alcohol, less cooked fruit allowed subtle flavors and aromas to emerge.

Still, it is easy to fool yourself when you judge wine. You try so hard to tease out a specific smell or taste that you can will it into existence. After an intense morning of judging, your taste buds may be too numb to detect subtle aromas and flavors. So I listened closely to my fellow judges, most of whom had judged this and other competitions for several years. We all sensed a shift toward restraint.

"We are seeing wine quality improve," said Gerry Ritchie, director of the enology department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, who sat on my panel. It also appears that vintners are lowering their prices; many of these wines would have carried higher price tags before the recession, she said.

Vintners that submit their wines to the Chronicle event and other competitions are eager for the marketing boost that comes with a gold medal, which 15% of entries typically receive. This year's record number of entries speaks to the increasingly tough wine market. Everyone is looking for an edge.

Judges, meanwhile, are on the front lines of discovering trends, and deciding which ones to honor. For instance, the Chardonnays show "a slow trend toward making it with less oak, with nice results," Ritchie said. And she prefers this emerging style. "A more balanced Chardonnay is coming. We are no longer going to be hit over the head by an oak 2-by-4."

Christopher Sawyer, the sommelier at The Lodge at Sonoma and a popular wine writer and consultant, agreed that mid-range American Chardonnays are improving. "The gold medal wines really separated themselves. And the crappy wines were really crappy. Still, the wines in the middle are vastly better than they have been," he said. He sees winemakers highlighting the fruit flavors and moving away from treatments like oak staves and chips or new barrels. "I like these wines. Chardonnay is supposed to taste like fresh fruit, not a lick of an oak tree slathered with butter."

Cabernets Still Catching Up

After a wine style's popularity peaks, it can take years for a new style to emerge to take its place. Today, the ripe, rich, high-alcohol style that has characterized American wine for more than a decade seems to have run its course, yet those wines continue to dominate store shelves and restaurant wine lists. Consumers are slow to accept new definitions for quality, Sawyer said. And established vintners fear shifting their style of winemaking lest they imply that their previous vintages were inferior. It has taken a new generation of American vintners willing to follow popular tastes as expressed by the rising sales of European wines to develop the lighter style that is emerging.

The shift was on display in the $26 to $30 Cabs at the competition. "This is an interesting price point," says Sawyer. "It is the sweet spot for sommeliers." Restaurants list the wines for $50 a bottle -- an easy sell in high-end establishments. "You can find rock star Cabs in this range now. Quality is up."

Yes, the Cabs we tasted in the competition showed improvement over past years, Ritchie said. There were few overdone or flawed wines, but these vintners still have a ways to go. Too many wines had the obvious chocolate flavors and aromas that are a sure sign of excessive oak treatments. "The Cabs appear to be trending toward the soft side and lack acidity. We tasted too many bland wines."

Looking over my tasting notes on the Cabs, I had to agree. The majority of the medals we awarded were bronze -- the wine world's equivalent of a pat on the back.

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