First and foremost, I have always been a vineyard guy. Each individual vineyard and its terroir are the building blocks for the wines I cultivate from these sites. This belief was ingrained in me during my early years at Chalone Winery under the tutorship of Richard Graff. I was cultivating grapes in one of the most incredible terroirs in California, learning to respect the vine, and let the wines make themselves, with little or no intervention. Like anything else, winegrowing evolves with technological advances. The idea is to remember that “basic” winemaking is the least intrusive, resulting in wines that are honorable to each site. The job of the winegrower is to record the organoleptic history of the vineyard year in the bottle, with as little fingerprint as possible. If I can accomplish this each vintage, then I have rewarded myself.
–Bill Wathen