2012 The Derivative

I am not sure I have met a winery owner quite like Mike Officer before. Of course, Officer is well-known for his advocacy of California's heritage vineyards, but his dedication to delivering value to the end consumer is just as noteworthy. All of that is served up with a giddy, boyish enthusiasm that is reflected in rich, powerful wines that highlight the essence of a number of Sonoma's best vineyards. I tasted all of these wines with Officer and longtime winemaker Jay Maddox from barrel prior to bottling. Maddox describes 2013 as a year with no shock weather events such as frost or heat wave. Weather at set was good, and the main challenge was managing the crop load. Harvest was earlier than normal. In response to the fruit that came in, Maddox opted for lower temperatures in fermentation and fewer punch downs. Unfortunately I was not able to taste the Petite Sirah and James Berry Syrah, both of which were being fined in preparation for bottling.

Mike Officer concluded his 15-year residency at Santa Rosa's Punchdown Cellars (formerly and sometimes still known as Copain Custom Crush to old-timers like him) following the massively productive 2012 vintage and has moved Carlisle into the former Mueller Winery in Windsor.From a start in 1998 with production of 650 cases, Officer is now flirting with the 10,000-case mark, and everything is sold out, with a waiting list that continues to grow.I tasted the 2012s with Officer at the new winery; compared to the hustle and controlled chaos at Punchdown, his new digs, which lie well off a very quiet, mostly residential road, exude a monastic calm.That suits Officer just fine because "the demands of producing as much as many wines (25 in 2012) as we do now makes distractions even more distracting."Two thousand twelve "has the potential to make epic wines if yields were controlled,: he told me, "because the fruit, the stems, everything was pristine, like a dream," a situation that repeated itself in 2013, "which is like another dream:two years in a row with high quantity and high quality?C'mon."