Nick and Andy Peay. Courtesy of Peay Vineyards.

Day 2, Part 2. Pinot Noir is my favorite varietal. And Peay Vineyards makes my favorite Pinot. So when I found out that my trip to Wine Country was going to coincide with Peay’s semi-annual open house at its winery in Cloverdale, I was pretty fired up.

The Peay story begins in the late-1990s, when brothers Nick and Andy Peay set out to make their own wine, from their own grapes, somewhere on the Sonoma Coast. They settled on a spot located just 4 miles from the Pacific Ocean on the northwestern edge of Sonoma County.

Andy and his wife Ami run the business and sell the wine. Nick and his wife Vanessa manage the vineyard and make the wine. Prior to launching Peay in 2001, Vanessa was the winemaker at Peter Michael Winery (earlier stints included positions at Château Lafite-Rothschild and Hirsch Winery). Nick was trained at UC Davis and is a veteran of Santa Cruz mountain wineries.

While the vineyard is on the “extreme” Sonoma Coast, the wine is made in northern Sonoma in a town called Cloverdale, in a facility that’s nestled a Chevron and a McDonald’s.

At the open house, the Peays were serving wood-fired pizza from Pangaea’s along with several different wines. We tasted seven: 2001 Peay Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir, 2006 Peay Vineyards Hirsch Vineyard Chardonnay; 2007 Peay Vineyards La Bruma Syrah; 2008 Peay Vineyards Les Titans Syrah; 2009 Peay Vineyards Estate Chardonnay; 2009 Peay Vineyards Pomarium Estate Pinot Noir; and a 2010 Cep (by Peay Vineyards) Rose.

The 2001 was a real treat – as the first Estate pinot that the Peays released was from the 2002 vintage. The night before the open house, Andy discovered about 30 cases of the wine in the Nick and Vanessa’s cellar, so he opened one up. Upon realizing that it tasted pretty good, he decided to bring several cases to the party. It tasted fantastic. Not as complex as one might hope for from a nine-year-old wine, but drinking very well.

The 2009 wines – especially the Pinot – were out of this world. Nick described the 2009 Pomarium as the best he’s made, and having tasted every vintage since the 2005, I can confidently say he’s right. All that wonderful fleshiness I’ve come to love from their wines – combined with great California fruit and Burgundian earthiness. I can’t wait to order this one.