1999 Pinot Noir (Sonoma Coast)

Steve Kistler, who told me that he advises his mailing-list customers to enjoy his chardonnays from most vintages within four to six years (in part because there's less free sulfur in his wines today), believes that 1999 has produced wines with longer aging potential. "In '96, '97 and '98 we had to pick late, at high sugars, to get thoroughly ripe flavors. But the '99 fruit ripened at lower sugar levels, and we benefitted from a long harvest. We got the best acids and pHs since 1995." Kistler is generally using less new oak these days: still up to 100% for the Hudson and Hyde wines but as little as 50% to 60% for the rest. And although Kistler believes that a certain amount of grape solids is needed in order for the native yeasts to function well, he has somewhat reduced the percentage of solids in recent years, to around 0.75%. Despite the fact that this winery now produces around 22,000 cases of chardonnay each year, Kistler is strictly hands-on when it comes to pressing the fruit, refusing to delegate this time-consuming but critical task to assistants. "And we're getting better at pressing cooler grapes," Kistler notes. The result of all these small improvements is that today's Kistler chardonnays are silkier and suaver than ever before, and are more likely to avoid the slight phenolic harshness that some wines have shown in past vintage.