Peters Family Winery

In a previous review of this winery’s 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, Gardner Vineyard (Sierra Foothills AVA) I may have slighted the winemaker, Douglas Peters, by suggesting that God did all the work. That’s foolish, of course; if HE had wanted to be a winemaker, HE wouldn’t have assigned the job to Noah.

Upon tasting this 2005 Pinot Noir from the foggy, windswept, downright cold Sonoma Stage Vineyard south of Petaluma, I am rethinking my opinion of Mr. Peters. This wine is a far cry from some of the bold extracted and alcoholic Pinots (somehow!) now coming from the Sonoma Coast AVA. Oh, to be sure, the winemaker here worked like a Noah-beaver at extraction… a month of maceration and skin fermentation, manual punching down the cap. And what did he get from all that effort at “extracting” from nature’s skimpy raw material…? A barely-past-rosé garnet colored, splendidly perfumed, geranium and red cherry infused, satisfactorily grippy, beautifully balanced wine that is probably what you’d get from Chablis, if red was legal in them parts. This is reverent Pinot winemaking in the tradition of David Bruce and Gary Farrell. Not made in heaven; but heavenly, nonetheless!

Reviewed March 25, 2008 by Roger Dial.

Other Awards & Accolades

Editors' Selection - Appellation America (March, 2008)