2008 Vintage: This was a challenging vintage. Beginning well with a dry spring, the season ended up filled with extremes. One of the worst frost seasons in years decimated parts of many vineyards and required immediate segmentation from unaffected parcels. The growing season of the 2008 vintage was met with multiple large temperature extremes, which were thankfully buffered due to the fact that many of our vineyards were not at a point developmentally where such extremes are as influential. And finally the fire season clouded some areas in smoke.

The best parts of the 2008 vintage were 1) we were able to segment vineyards based on natural variation and differences due to frost and 2) the weather during the ripening period for most of our sites was consistent and moderate. October brought sunny but cool weather allowing many of the vineyards to extend their hang time with little risk of elevating alcohol levels. There was great fruit to be harvested in 2008, but it took attention to detail to discover.

With patience and detail oriented farming, we not only tried to define the vineyard by row number, years planted, clone, or rootstock, but also integrate how Mother Nature generated differences across man-designated blocks.  Happily the approach was validated as we realized that significant differences emerged within vineyard lots and it has required stringent blending even of single vineyard wines. In 2008 difficult choices of what to omit were made to maintain our commitment to uncompromising quality.  Production was based on quality alone, not volume requirements. With this vintage we were not interested in making the average of any place (even if that is very good), but we want to parse out and discover the best of every place and only produce that.

We feel that we have seen the results of these decisions already exhibited in the 2008 vintage wines where production of many of the wines has been reduced compared to past years. A greater purity and perhaps a greater quality has emerged in the 2008 vintage. Explore and enjoy!