I think the 2006 vintage is unique among at least the last 20 years in California. It was generally cool, very spread out and sporadic, producing wines in a style somewhat similar to 2004.

After a heat wave in July, flavors started to show in the high ‘teens of degrees Brix (scale of sugar content). Then, rather mysteriously, the flavors flat-lined and almost disappeared. The vintage became a game of “let it hang.”

I think the heat slowed the canopy in its work, making us wait for flavors. Usually we harvest between 24.5 and 25.0 degrees Brix. This year we were closer to 26.0.

Normally we harvest all of our vineyards within a week. This year our picks were a month apart. As a result, we have an array of different wines and styles in the cellar. In general, the acids seem a little higher, as you would expect with malic acid levels up in a cooler season. We’ll have to finish malolactic fermentation to fully evaluate.

The wines are elegant, not as opulent as the 2005s, but with laser-like fruit characters, very focused and wonderfully perfumed.

The botrytis (gray mold) issue could have been huge in this drawn-out, cool year. But we also had more time to deal with it. First we thinned fruit in the vineyard, then we sorted as we picked, and finally, we sorted at the winery. We got 90 to 95% of it out, and we don’t mind a little. In cooler areas, botrytis can add to or enhance fruit aromas.

We did eliminate a lot of fruit and sold a lot of barrels because we had no wine to fill them. Usually we average about 155 gallons of juice per ton of grapes; this year we got 137. That’s close to a 12 percent loss. This year berries were larger than usual, so saignées (drawing off lightly-colored juice) to get color and tannins also lowered yields.

Early in the vintage, I was more conservative with length of maceration (“steeping” skins with wine). As we progressed and I encountered no problems with botrytis, I went to a more typical maceration time. Extraction took a while. Color, tannins and richness didn’t come until toward the end of fermentation, whereas in some years we see it at the end of cold soak (“steeping” skins with cold juice), just before we ferment.

I did very little different in the cellar. I might do a little lees stirring to add some mid-palate richness. The vintage presented some problems, but we dealt with them. It was a little nerve-wracking, but by mid-November, we have very solid, lovely wines, better than I had hoped for.

Burgundy, by the way, had the same year – a hot July and lots of botrytis. Oregon had a warm, but not hot, growing season that gave growers, who often cut yields dramatically, confidence in their crops. Then it cooled and rained in little patches, and people got nervous. A little Indian summer arrived, flavors came on, sugars shot up and they had an excellent vintage – just at the edge of maturity without raisiny characters.

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