2010 Three Birds Red Wine Sonoma County

"In 14 years I've never taken a vacation after harvest but in 2010 I had to," Mike Officer told me. The stress of the slow growing season, late August heat wave, a rapid harvest (six weeks instead of a normal eight) and intense sorting was simply overwhelming, he said. His brutal selection process involved cluster sorting on the vine and even taking sorting tables into the vineyard during harvest, often going down to a berry-by-berry selection. The result, he said, "was about 105 gallons per ton of grapes picked versus a normal 155." Officer says that his 2010s have strong phenolic character and tannins, which will make them wines to age, "longer than the 2009s, for sure."