One thing that raising children has taught us so far is that people are not always ready for the same thing at the same chronological point in their lives. This resonates with our experience with wines. Harvest dates, time on skins for red wines, vary with site and vintage. Some of them are ready to bottle sooner than others. Certain bottled wines hit their strides relatively early, some a bit later, and others…take many years to become charming in a most pleasant, complex, and sometimes astonishing way.
While they can show very well young, our style of winemaking rewards some additional time in the bottle. We are fortunate to be able to 1) refine this style without compromise in order to satisfy mundane, yet unavoidable business realities (cash flow), 2) relieve some of your angst over opening that ‘last’ bottle of a recent release and 3) provide reasonably developed wines to restaurants and wine shops. To make this all happen, we offer our youngest wines (as well as Zinfandel futures) to you first so that we may hold off on releasing these same wines to restaurants and wine shops who need those bottles ‘ready to go’ immediately upon receipt. This is kind of a two-phase release. To the delight of many, it has often been possible for us to dig up replacements of recent releases in response to an inquiry. Although, as demand has increased dramatically this year, the time period these may be available will probably decrease.
Download the complete newsletter: Whenever you are ready….