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Pepper Bridge

Swiss-born Jean-François Pellet arrived in Walla Walla Valley and joined the Pepper Bridge venture in 1999 as partner/winemaker after having managed vineyards and made wine in Switzerland and Spain and having spent four years with Heitz Cellars in Napa Valley. In the early days, his wines always struck me as a bit beefy and tannic but in recent years Pellet has cut back on the extraction of tannins, working the cap fairly often and pressing early, and the wines have gained dramatically in refinement. Pellet noted that berry size in Washington is typically lower than in California, giving Washington fruit a higher skin-to-juice ratio.

Pellet told me that the heat came very early in 2015. “It was super-hot in July but then the weather was nearly perfect from mid-August through October,” he told me. “The two thousand fifteens are definitely ripe, but like the 2013s they have kept some nice intricacy. In comparison, the 2014s are more fruit-forward.” Pellet noted that the extreme heat during veraison in 2014 actually had the effect of delaying the harvest by two weeks. Incidentally, Pellet is one of several winemakers who have recently become big fans of Cabernet Franc in eastern Washington, “now that we're able to get the fruit riper than in the early days.”

From Focus on Washington: Hot Times in the Desert (Nov 2016) by Stephen Tanzer

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2015 Sauvignon Blanc

Release Price: $36

Color: White

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