2014 High Road James Berry Vineyard

This year’s releases from Cris Cherry represent the most complex and refined wines that I have yet tasted from Villa Creek, a fact that Cherry simply attributes to “more time in the vines and more time in the cellar.” Cherry noted that he is trying to fine-tune his and focus his farming and winemaking by delegating more of his responsibilities at his iconic (and consistently excellent) Paso Robles restaurant, also called Villa Creek, so that he can devote as much energy as possible to wine-growing. Based on his most recent wines I think that the positive results are becoming clear. Cherry’s winery sits on the lower portion on his 60-acre hillside property in the Willow Creek District, where he began planting to grapes in 2012. Farming follows organic and biodynamic standards and the wines will be released under the Maha Estate label. In the meantime Cherry continues to buy grapes from some of the region’s most esteemed vineyards, including James Berry, Denner and Bassetti for his current wines, all of which are made with native yeasts and aged in combinations of French oak barrels of varying size and concrete and stainless steel tanks.