2007 Viognier Lia

The key to making successful wines in the long, fairly cool 2006 growing season, said winemaker Andy Smith, was "lots of cluster thinning, or else the crop would run away from you." Smith described this as "pacing the vintage, like you would with a horse. You want a steady gallop, not erratic surges." He also noted that 2006 presented a huge challenge because of botrytis issues, meaning that "a brutal selection process" was required. Smith chooses not to stir the lees of his chardonnays "because my goal is to preserve tension in the wines, and batonnage opens them up more than I want." Says Smith about the set of 2006s he presented: "The chardonnays are unsurprisingly rich, but the pinots have surprised us with their elegance, which is a result of elevated yields. They aren't light, though."