2008 Syrah Peters Vineyard

Web Marquez, one of the three winemaking partners at Anthill Farms, described 2008 "as an absolutely hellish vintage. There was too much cold, too much frost, not enough fruit, and, of course, there were the fires, and then there was too much heat at the end of August and beginning of September. We probably got less sleep in 2008 than in any other vintage." Marquez told me that smoke issues were so severe in the Abbey-Harris and DeMuth vineyards that he and his partners decided not to bottle any vineyard-designated wines from those sites. They tried to keep the least-affected lots so that they could use them in an AndersonValley appellation pinot noir, but to me at least, this wine still shows a very distinct smoky character. The pinots here are made with a light hand and are consistently among the most graceful and precise wines I taste during my annual tour of the NorthCoast. Winos who measure a wine's quality by its size and extract should steer clear.