Vintner's Market

Here's a (crappy phone) shot of our half-table at this past weekend's SF Vintner's Market at Fort Mason.

Good times! Ton of people moving through the place on Saturday and Sunday, met a lot of nice folks. People loved the Pinots, at least while I was within earshot....

Here's a shot of my view on Saturday. An intimate airplane hangar....







Here's a shot of Raquel at the table, who helped out Saturday afternoon to much applause!







The 2007 was dark and delicious, though next time I think I'll decant -- it was missing some of its more delicate notes. The 2008 was showing very well for a "pre-release" -- many folks found it more approachable than the 2007 (which I find brooding, more complex). The 08 struck nice lean, bright dark-cherry and toasty cola notes with agreeable weight mid-palate. We sold a number of bottles.

Both 07 and 08 are young; they'll continue to get better in the bottle for the next 3 to 5 years; the 07 likely longer, which I think will be a very special wine if I can just stop drinking it now...

Thanks to Rob Barnett and the SFWA for helping process our orders. And it was a true pleasure to be next to the Aver Family Vineyard and the San Tasti palate-cleanser folks!

Join us at the SF Vintner's Market April 10th & 11th!

The SF Vintner's Market looks to be quite a blow-out: http://www.sfvintnersmarket.com

We'll be there, pouring our 2007 Russian River Pinot Noir, as well as pre-release tastes of our 2008! Come join us!

Get $10 off the ticket price by using the promo code "10bucksoff" when you register here: http://sfvintnersmarket.eventbrite.com/

2009: Let it be...

Sat down again last week with Chris and Tom Leaf to taste the 2009 Amber and Devoto in barrel. Was going in thinking about taking the Amber off of wood early (50% is on new Radoux (French Oak)) as it's shaping up with such great flavor. Am also considering a big blend decision with the Devoto fruit: blend in Amber fruit, losing Devoto's Green Valley appellation (in lieu of the larger Russian River designation), but ideally creating a wholly richer and more complex wine.

Ended up deciding to decide nothing. Everything is evolving nicely, two very distinctive and interesting wines, am going to just step back and get out of their way for now. We noticed a little reduction on the Devoto wine (sulfuric compounds, likely a byproduct of fermentation) that some might "clean up" with a drop of copper; but again decided to leave the thing alone, the aromas seemed to blow off quickly and I expect these compounds to combine and resolve themselves in the coming months. Tom Leaf particularly liked the "Oregonian" aromas and taste of the Devoto, a dead-ringer, he claims, for an Oregonian wine whose name I've forgotten. We're all excited to see how it shapes up over the summer.

And the Amber Ridge? Gangbusters: every kind of berry flavor you can imagine bursting out of that wine with spice to boot, it's certainly over the years become much more interesting fruit. Going to leave it in the Radoux for now, which to my taste is giving it some elegance (beyond what Francois Freres, the oak I used in previous vintages, does).