2007 Pinot Noir Louise Vineyard

While Steve Doerner reckons that 2008 will live up to the hype, he told me that he's a contrarian by nature and tends to "look for the Achilles heel while everybody else is going nuts over a vintage." But he said that this works the other way too. "I try to find the positive attributes when everybody else has written a year off," he said, adding that he thinks 2005 is the equal of 2008 here. "And the '90s, in general, made better wines as a decade than the 2000s." Speaking of older vintages, Doerner told me that this is a good time to check in on the '99s "because, like the '98s, they've come around after a cranky stage and are drinking really well now." I was only able to taste the entry-level pinot from '08 as the other wines are still in barrel and won't be released until next spring-"at the earliest," according to Doerner.