2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Peter Martin Ray Vineyard

John and Phoebe Raytek turned out a superb set of wines in 2017. The Pinots in particular are off the charts. Pinot generally ripens earlier than Chardonnay across the sites in the Ceritas portfolio. John Raytek told me that he made the decision to bring in the Pinot early, in advance of the heat as much as possible. He did a brief cold soak of about three days (unusual here) in order to maintain as much freshness as possible. In this vintage, the whole clusters are in the 40-50% range rather than the 75-80% that is more typical, as Raytek feared the stems might not be fully ripe. The Chardonnay went through the Labor Day spikes, which likely explains why those wines are relatively hushed. All of the 2017s were bottled in November 2018, about a month earlier than usual, another decision that appears to have been spot on. The Peter Martin Ray Cabernet is also stellar. That wine benefits from being made from fully destemmed fruit (the debut 2012 incorporated whole clusters) and 50% new oak, another change from the early days for this wine, which saw no new oak.