1997 Pinot Noir Valhalla Vineyards Napa Valley

Gus and Phyllis Anderson have recently hired brought in enologist Denis Malbec, who made a couple of vintages of Chateau Latour in the mid-'90s, as consultant. The Andersons were in the processing of cutting tunnels into the hillside facing their home and will build a new winery to support future growth to the 10,000-case range as their new denser cabernet and merlot plantings come on line. The selection for the winery special Eloge blend is made the January following each harvest, and typically comes from the estate's oldest hillside vines.

Gus and Phyllis Anderson currently have 26 acres planted on this estate, about 90% of which is cabernet sauvignon. Anderson, who shares winemaking duties with his son Todd, also offers a non-malolactic chardonnay from Carneros and a pinot noir from Valhalla Vineyard in the outskirts of the town of Napa (beginning in '98 there is also a pinot from Dutton Ranch). Anderson cabernet and Bordeaux blend, both made from estate grapes, have been remarkably consistent over the past decade, even if harvest dates have varied from the beginning of September in '97 to October 12 in '99. "We don't find that much difference between the years," Anderson added. "We take off fruit in June, limiting the crop to three to four tons per acre. Then everything is a matter of being patient. "Anderson cited as an example the 1989 harvest, which was cut in half by substantial rainfall in mid-September. "We ended up waiting into early November to pick the rest of our fruit. The two halves of the harvest were vinified separately and we found no noticeable difference between them." x000D x000D x000D x000D The small, tucked-away Conn Valley, just outside St. Helena, is clearly a favored microclimate for cabernet. "The soil type is very much like the Rutherford Bench," Anderson explained. "In the summer it's very hot here in the middle of the day, but from 3:00 to 7:00 every day a breeze blows up from Lake Hennessey and cools down the vines. That's the defining influence here. "Anderson takes a distinctly hands-off approach to elevage. His chardonnay, for example, spends 12 months on its lees in all new barrels, then is racked off the lees and returned to the same barrels for another 6 months of aging. The cabernet is racked only three times in total ("just when the wine shows reduction," says Anderson), and is bottled without fining or filtration.