Afternooning with Nicki Pruss of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, and the 2007 and 1999 S.L.V.
S.L.V. estate vineyard of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, adjacent to Fay. The harvest was done quickly - from start to finish in the first half of October. Much later than the normal late August through late September picking. 2010 has been unusually cool and extended growing season in Napa. That bodes well for the complexity that will develop in the wines. At Stag's Leap Wine Cellars , they are already oogling over what's to come. Standing in the Fay vineyard with Nicki Pruss , the winemaker since 2005 and assistant winemaker since 2000, we taste a cluster of Petit Verdot grapes doomed to die on the vine, as the primary fruit has been brewing in the barrels for a couple of weeks now. Nicki Pruss' journey into wine was somewhat circuitous. An American of Irish, Austrian and Eastern European descent (Pruss used to be Prussetski), a podiatrist by trade, and an avid beer-brewer hobbyist, her bicycle trek across France in 1995 changed everything. She came back to the States and ...