2015 Red Artist Series

Anna Schafer described 2017 as “a strange year due to the fire,” adding that the smoke provide a layer of sunscreen that had a cooling effect.” Not surprisingly, the 2017 whites from àMaurice display lovely fruit intensity and energy.

Schafer, like many of her colleagues, has been more careful with her selection of harvest dates in recent hotter growing seasons in eastern Washington. She expressed the opinion that some of the state's warmest sites ripened their fruit too quickly and so the wines are more characterized by primary fruit, rather than subtle secondary notes. Still, in 2014 she picked even earlier than she had in recent years. And she picked even more quickly in 2015, bringing in her fruit in Dionysus vineyard “two weeks before everyone else.” Incidentally, this winery’s annual production has risen in recent years and is now around 5,000 cases.