This is very exciting. Andy Humphrey has been manager of Weber for quite a while now and happily for all, Vivian & Arthur Weber (see Extended Info) sold the top and the west-facing slope of their vineyard to Andy and he renamed it Ana. You can ask Andy what it means. The Ana vineyard is among the oldest in the Dundee Hills. The Webers planted Block 4 in 1976. Again, it is Pommard on its own roots. It is just a tractor-width away from the Weber block 5 and 7, yet the difference is amazing! Never have I seen such a clear illustration of how the age of the vines can make such a difference. This wine has a similar spice to the Weber Vineyard, though not as intense. Funnily enough, the texture is deeper, darker, richer. Ana has a very sweet, deep vanilla cherry flavor and the maturity of the vines gives the fruit a telling sophistication. This is a wine I want to curl up with by the fire. -Rob Stuart
2007 Vintage Report
What a year! If you remember the weather in 2007 you'll remember one thing - rain. The spring wasn't too bad, and we actually had a pretty good set. But we had several unseasonably cool and rainy weeks throughout the summer and early fall. Followed by buckets and buckets of rain in October.
Luckily we were able to get some of our fruit for sparkling in before the end of September, and a little bit of Cabernet from Klipsun Vineyard in Eastern Washing (we put it in our port). Other than that, we just had to hold tight. It was brutal because the fruit wasn't ripe, and the rain just kept coming. We were dreaming of arks and keeping our fingers crossed that it would eventually stop.
We gambled, and sure enough, we won. The sun came out on the 23rd of October and we had gorgeous wetehr till the end of the month. We gave things a few days to dry out and sweeten up, and bam, we went out and picked it all. Somehow we survived, and actually prodcued some incredible wines, in spite of it all. Welcome to Oregon.
At R. Stuart & Co. we hang our hat on blended Pinot noirs. The Big Fire Pinot and the Autograph are really the cornerstones of what we do.
Having said that, it’s still lots of fun to make single vineyard Pinot noirs. In 2007 I made six of them. All in small lots – just about 100 cases each – and all are unfined and unfiltered. We age them each for about 10 months in a combination of new to 5 year old French oak.
Taste and explore these wines for yourself. Watching them unfold over the years is a fascinating and delicious pastime – I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
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