2012 Red Artist Series

Anna Schafer, who has a particular fondness for Viognier, believes she "nailed it" in 2014. The fruit set was healthy and she "hung heavy" to allow for consistent heat, figuring that if it turned cooler she could quickly drop fruit. In the end, she was happy to have had the larger crop load because the heat was consistent and the plants did not shut down during the summer or fall. (If she had had lower yields the fruit would have gotten overripe too quickly.)

Schafer used a bit less new oak than normal in order not to cover up the primary fruit character of her 2014 white wines, which she described as very pretty. "But we picked Viognier too late in 2013 and got a weird, cloying, juicy-fruit quality, almost banana-like. Two thousand twelve was such a happy year that I hardly remember it; I'm more likely to remember the traumatic years."