1996 Red Wine Russian River Valley

As at a number of other wineries, Tom Dehlinger has reached a comfortable maximum size level in the 7,000-to-8,000-case range and expects to spend the next several years fine-tuning quality rather than increasing production. Some replanting is going on, with less desirable clones being replaced (Dehlinger is using some Kistler clones now, and reports that he is getting richer wines as a result). But Dehlinger has no plans to expand acreage under vine. According to associate winemaker Eric Sussman, the estate has moved to later picking in recent years: the objective is to get thorough flavor maturity and to avoid green flavors and unripe tannins. These are certainly ripe wines, but I find some of them, especially the pinots, huge to the point of unwieldiness. Although they will never be mistaken for their French counterparts, they are stuffed with fruit and extract. Sussman compares the '97s made here to the Dehlinger '94s, the most graceful recent set of wines from this winery. As was the case throughout the state, crop levels were high, although the pinot vines were thinned to a very reasonable three tons per acre. All of the Dehlinger wines come from the estate vineyards.