100% Chardonnay from the venerable Guman Vineyard in Napa.

Fruit was scarce in the Gumans' vineyard again in 2015: we harvested less than a ton of the old vine Chardonnay, and have made only 450 bottles of wine.

The wine is very pure in this vintage; it is more like Meursault than Arbois, in spite of its sustained exposure to oxygen in barrel. It very complex and long, with kind of gravelly minerality. It is neither fruity nor buttery, completely dominated by secondary characteristics. Destined for long maturation in bottle.

This an especially delightful vintage of the Prince! The wine is so light in color that it looks like a Chablis—not a skin-fermented Sauvignon! We are surprised because we did nothing differently this year—the winemaking was the same as it has been nearly every year since 2010: 100% whole cluster, from Farina, harvested about two weeks after LSB; no destemming, with the fruit crushed by foot when it arrives at the winery, fermentation in wooden puncheons for 3 weeks, with a little maceration post-fermentation. The wine is light only in color—it is still utterly powerful in both aromatics and in the mouth. This is perhaps the most graceful vintage of the Prince. It is utterly distinctive; as powerful as any vintage of this wine, and as elegant as the very best. The tannins are subtle but present; the acidity is good; the wine is long and complex. But elegance and grace are what characterize it most. We have seen something similar in 1MN--as if it were a vintage characteristic that somehow affected vineyards as distant as Lodi and the Sonoma Coast. So interesting. We think that you will love the wine, but we also feel sure that if you know the wine, you will look twice at the glass as you first pour it.

We have had the honor to work with Tegan Passalacqua's centennial Kirschenmann vineyard since 2011, but this vintage of red wine from the vineyard is the first in which we have succeeded in expressing the majesty of the site. For the first time, we have caught the very distinctive fruit character of Zinfandel, without making a wine that is fruity, or in any way recalls the super-ripe and rich Zinfandels that became ubiquitous in another era. This wine is light but fresh and pungent; like the 1MN, it is made with the Courier protocol of a floating cap. The vineyard ripens slowly but with great freshness and high acid; we have caught both of these characteristics without any of the distracting artifacts of fermentation. Super wine, so characteristic of its origin.

100% Syrah; 100% whole cluster, from a perfect drought-vintage. Harvested early, with perfect ripeness and no over-ripeness at all.

There is a very special reason for selecting this wine. We have sent it to you before, when we first released a little more than a year ago.

It it the last vintage that we made of this wine, and the best. After harvest 2014, we decided to stop working with this vineyard for many reasons—in spite of the fact that we hada always made REALLY good wine from it. I will explain sometime when we are in the same place.
The Fall Fire of 2017 hit Hudson hard, on the very first night. This vineyard was one of the ones that the flames raced through. The vineyard is damaged; we do not know how badly. I wanted to send you this wine on this occasion because it is such a noble product of the vineyard—drink the wine, and think about the fires, and about fragility, and the possibility that some things have to endure and persist and remind us.

We have 95 bottles of this wine in the Library. Just enough for you.