1997 Pinot Noir One Acre

Ted Lemon notes that the '97s offered the highest acids and lowest pHs since 1993. Yields varied widely, and where crop levels were reasonable the fruit showed more flavor development than in the warmer 1996 vintage. But some sites, noted Lemon, were wildly overcropped. Lemon refused to buy from one of his Occidental chardonnay sources; his chardonnay from Charles Heintz Vineyard, which previously made up half of the Littorai Occidental bottling, was thus bottled on its own for the first time. Chardonnay fermentations were protracted following the '97 harvest, Lemon told me, and the malos didn't finish until the fall of 1998. The wines were bottled in January 1999 off their original lees. The pinots as well spent longer on their lees, without racking, than past vintages.