100% Sauvignon Blanc from a rocky hillside on Sonoma Mountain; 100% destemmed into large wooden tank, skin-fermented for about a month with daily pump-overs; aged for 9 months in neutral barrels.

For the first time since 2007, we made this skin-fermented wine 100% from berries, without stems, and with pump-overs only and no punchdowns. I had decided to employ the only method that we had ever used to make the Prince until 2008, namely to destem the fruit into a tank and pump it over during the fermentation. In 2007, this made a very powerful wine, dark, spicy, almost leathery. in 2008, the wine was lighter, but still very powerful. We expected the same thing in 2014, but instead got a wine that is in some ways quite new: a very subtle and elegant version of the Prince. I think that most of this difference is the nature of the vintage; or, to be quite precise, it is the consequence of the vintage (thin skins, subtle flavors) emphasized by the technique (more gentle extraction, no effect of stems).

The wine will age as well as all versions do— probably for as long as 20 years. but it will not change much. it does not have the initial savageness of most vintages; it has the sophistication of an aged wine from the beginning.