
This was our most challenging vintage. It was a cold and wet vintage. I recall when the grapes came in, the berries were small but the skins were falling off of the grapes on the sorting line. The stems were mostly bright, almost neon green and I manually went thru the entire load and removed any stems that were not brown which was probably 85% of them. As we raised the barrels, it was clear that the wine needed something and shortly before bottling, we traded a barrel of our Syrah for a barrel of Petite Sirah that had more "oomph". It worked as it rounded out the wine quite well and really made a difference. At the time, we recommended drinking within the first eight years just to be safe. To top it off our production that year was only 2/3 of the prior years. So with trepidation, we opened one of our few remaining bottles to check it out at age 13. You know what? It is damn good, still. Purple in color, opaque and bright. The nose has boysenberries, char, slight grilled meats and slight violets. Medium bodied. Medium tannins. On the palate, this drinks uniquely for our wines. California in style, i suppose, but with this gravelly undertone that works. Really nice acidity. And still, great black raspberry fruit. Good finish. Probably at peak, but no signs of being over the hill. It drinks well on its own and worked well with food. I am nervous saying it will go more than five years but I hope I get the chance to find out.