Tasting in the cellar on a “Fruit Day”…
The Biodynamic calendar says today is a “Fruit Day”. Wines generally show their best on fruit days, as the lunar energies are aligned in such a fashion as to accentuate the fruit and flavor elements to their fullest. Having tasted the same wines on fruit, flower, leaf, and root days, I can attest to the fact that there is indeed a hugely discernible difference - with the same wines appearing closed-down, tannic, or just plain flat on leaf days for example, but fresh, vibrant and juicy on fruit days.
Kelley Fox and I chose today, a fruit day, to do our first comprehensive tasting through the cellar of our ’09s, which have finished or are just finishing malo. We’ve been really pleased with these wines since the beginning, but it’s always illuminating to get the first look post-malo and see what the wines are really all about. (There were pretty high levels of malic acid this year, so the overall acidity and structure of the wines change quite a bit after all the malic gets changed into lactic…)
In a word, we are thrilled. 2009 was very good to us. There is a very appealing juicy fruitiness to the wines on the mid-palate, very nice flavors that are driven by fruit sweetness, but without elevated alcohol that could have come from the rapidly rising sugars as harvest approached last fall. All of our pinots will come in at about 13.5% alcohol - which I’ve always felt to be a sweetspot for our style of wine. The length is quite extraordinary, and there is just a lovely balance and harmony all around. It is already evident that the old vines from our blocks of Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills will be the best of the cellar and will make up the 2009 Audrey cuvée. Everything else we will leave to sort itself out for the next several months, and we will see what different bottlings may present themselves to us over the course of élévage…
Don’t forget that tomorrow night - Jan. 14th at 6:30pm - I’ll be pouring La Paulée and some J-J Confuron burgundy at the fabulous Allison Inn & Spa in Newberg - where our wines are featured all week in the exquisite Jory restaurant - I look forward to seeing you there!