Tasting With Our Vineyard Manager
Yesterday I got together with Jean-Marie Martin, our contract vineyard manager, to taste through the wines we have made from our Annadel Estate grapes. It was highly instructive.We finally have a sufficient track record with the vineyard – tasting individual lots through four vintages (2005-2008) we were able to debrief and plan a bit better.
First, there is no question that the wines are improving, both as the vineyard itself matures and as our farming of this distinctive piece of ground does as well. We got off to a great start with the 2005 vintage - the wines are huge and still closed in. The 2006 vintage shows increasing structure and depth in the Rhônes. The vintage marks our first 100% Estate Pinot bottling, and the wine is lovely, aromatic and forward.
We knocked it out of the park with the 2007 vintage. The Annadel Estate Pinot Noir is both massive and subtle – we just wish we had more of it. The Rhônes are a bit more restrained than in 2006, but with the vines another year older the wines are more expressive of the individual varietals.
It is still early to judge the 2008's but Jean-Marie was able to pick out that the wines are more forward than the 2007's – consistent with the even year/odd year pattern I have discussed before. The Pinot crop was down again, so the wine has serious concentration. The Rhônes are huge, angular, gangly and unfocused at this point, but promising. The Rosé is just beautiful – the maturation of my blend strategy is giving us a more approachable wine than I produced in 2006.
So Jean-Marie and I were able to chat about farming strategies for 2009 with a clear picture of what we have acheieved with our farming in finised wines, and a clearer understanding between the two of us of where we want to go in the future.
We wrapped up with a pleasant luch at Della Santina's, where we enjoyed a bottle of Valpolicella that had been awarded tre biccheri by Gambero Rosso. It was gratifying to note that wines we had just tasted at our winery shared elements of style and structure with this particular recognized and celebrated wine. It drove home to Jean-Marie the point of how high I put the stakes for our winegrowing.
posted 1/22/2009 06:45:00 AM
1 Comments:
John,
The tour of your warehouse and free wine tasting that you gave our group when we visited a few years ago was amazing. I view it sort of like a random act of kindness and someday it will come back to you.
Cheers
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