Wine Article

I am actually the second person in my family with Peterson in my surname to enter a cellar in his 27th year of life and attempt to make Pinot Noir and Zinfandel. The first, my father, entered the winery of Joe Swan in 1974 to learn how to make wine. Perhaps, if Joe has not been such a good teacher, or the little nook of the Russian River Valley in which Swan is located was not so beautiful, or the vintage had not been a good one, my pop would not have gone on to start Ravenswood Winery in 1976. I can happily only speculate what I would be doing if kismet had not had her way.
Up until July or so of 2007 I was pretty convinced that I was not going to be making Pinot. The post-Sideways boom was in full effect, and the price for Pinot grapes vis-à-vis quality was simply ridiculous. Enter my friend Josh Hermsmeyer who I had met while making catty remarks together at the back of an OIV marketing course in Davis. As fortune would have it, he had a small amount of Pinot fruit available from his steeply sloped vineyard planted across Laguna Road from Joe Swan Winery. By the time I had pulled my jaw back in line with the remainder of my skull, I was the proud daddy of a ton of Pinot.
The vineyard, already nine years old and planted to a suitcase DRC clone, yielded a meager and precious .9 tons per acre in 2007. The fruit, picked on the first of September, was hastily brought back to the winery where it was destemmed into an open top fermenter and a large puncheon made by Tonnellerie Rousseau. Following a crazy ride during ferment (Pinot has a tendency to be scarily precocious in its fermenting habits), the fruit was basket pressed to 50% new French wood (in this case the new barrel was from a Burgundian Claude Gillet made from oak sourced from the Vosges forest in northeast France).
After 11.5 months lying sur-lie, the wine was racked and bottled in late August of 2008.
The first release from Rebecca’s carries the hallmarks of Pinot from the Golden Triangle of Russian River Valley. Remarkably dark color for the varietal, with a deft combination of black raspberry, bing cherry, bergamot, vanilla, and exotic cooking spices. The clean and delineated flavors are deep, harmonious, and bright. The alcohol is not too great. I am overwhelmingly pleased. My pop thinks it tastes like a wine Joe would make, and that is good enough for me!
Unfortunately, since only 50 some-odd cases were produced the allocation is tighter than I would like it to be.