2009 Syrah Larry Hyde & Sons Vineyard

The major news here is that Phelps has recently decided to bring their Freestone project back under the official Phelps umbrella for greater efficiency, so beginning with the 2009 vintage the Freestone chardonnays and pinots will be labeled Joseph Phelps Freestone Vineyards Following a tricky 2008 growing season for pinot noir in the Sonoma Coast (and points north), 2009 brought very healthy grapes, noted director of winemaking Damian Parker, who rated it 8.5 on a scale of 10 in terms of cleanliness of fruit, with 2010 meriting 6. Over on the Napa side, however, the winemaking team at Phelps loves the 2010 reds for their precision and aromatic lift. Almost all of the Backus and Insignia wines, as well as the syrah, were from fruit picked before the serious rains began on October 23, said Parker.

Director of winemaking Damian Parker describes 2008 as an erratic year in which shatter during the flowering thinned the clusters and the summer brought better weather than the tricky spring. Two thousand nine, he went on, was a cooler year in general, but Phelps was lucky enough to harvest its Bacchus vineyard and nearly all of the fruit normally earmarked for the Insignia prior to the heavy October rainstorm. Incidentally, roughly 36,000 of the winery's 50,000-case production is accounted for by the Napa Valley cabernet and the Insignia bottling.