The Search For Treasure

Jon & I have been talking about this since last harvest, 2007...what other vineyards, clones and Rhone varietals should we consider adding to our treasure in the 2008 harvest? After much discussion (which, of course we thoroughly enjoy), we came up with some new vineyards such as Larry Mettler's Petite Sirah.

We did attempt to purchase some last year, but the portion of the field we were looking at had some late season issues. We're also taking some Syrah Noir to compare to the wonderful Syrah 470 we've included in Lot '06 and the 2007 vintage, to see what additional characteristics it might bring to our final 2008 blend. Al Bechthold's ancient vine Cinsault is being thinned more this year than prior years, even though it was only yielding about 2 - 2.5 tons per acre, and this year we're pulling from the northwest corner rather than the southeast section.

Each year we want to find more Lodi fruit from different, but exceptional vineyards to determine what benefits if any they might have in our special program. Even though we've already found some wonderful gold mines for our Panthos blend, there are certainly more undiscovered treasures out there and we don't intend to stop looking.