Peay Vineyards is the project of grower Nick Peay, who grows the grapes, his wife Vanessa Peay, who makes the wine, and Nick's brother Andy Peay who handles the business side of the winery. The Peay brothers explored all of Northern California with the idea of making cool-climate Pinot Noir and eventually settled on an old orchard on the last ridgetop before the Pacific Ocean north of the town of Annapolis in Sonoma County. For nearly three decades, the Peays have been making some of California's finest Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah. This lot includes three magnums of Pinot Noir from the superb 2022 vintage, which the family managed to harvest without suffering any of the ill effects of the late heatwave that characterized that otherwise uneventful and very easy growing year.

Here's a little about each of the three wines:

Scallop Shelf
This single-vineyard bottling is named after the scallop fossils that were found as the vineyard was being established. The Scallop Shelf blend is more perfumed than Ama with slightly tarter cherry aromas mixing with sandalwood and tea qualities on a beguiling nose that evolves with time in the glass. The wine is translucent. A prologue indicating that what follows is a wine of elegance, lift and grace, not heavy, flabby, richness. The texture on the palate is smooth with medium weight. The red fruit flavors mix with mineral and forest floor aromas that linger on a salivating finish with bright acidity that is present but not aggressive. This is quintessential Scallop Shelf Pinot Noir and we look forward to seeing it evolve with time.

2022 vintage: 97 points from both Decanter and Jeb Dunnuck

Ama
In a multitude of languages, ama means “love, being of love, a Japanese female diver, grandmother, and land or place.” The last definition is pertinent as ama means “land or place” in the Kashaya language of the Pomo people. The Pomo thrived in the region of the Pacific Coast that Peay Vineyards occupies for millennia. They named the knoll on the vineyard “where scallops lie”. Peay is focused on making wines that speak of a place, mainly, their vineyard. Best showcasing that voice is their goal as wine growers and winemakers. By the 2009 vintage, Nick, Vanessa, and Andy felt the more recently planted blocks were revealing a distinct expression of Peay Vineyards Pinot noir and deserved to be elevated to a vineyard designate named, Ama.

Captivating cherry, pipe tobacco, and garam masala curry aromas emerge from deep in the glass. A lead mineral element enters in the mid-palate with plum, robust red fruits, and late fall forest notes lingering on a very long finish that appears to build and broaden with more air and time. This is drinking really well right now and will be for 5, 10 and many more years in the future.

2022 Vintage: 96 points Decanter, 95 points Jeb Dunnuck

Pomarium
Pomarium is Latin for apple orchard. The vineyard was once planted to acres of apple trees; some for eating, some for drying, some for making cider. Many of the remaining 100-year-old trees still produce delicious fruit. They encircle blocks 1, 14, and 15. This is the most muscular wine with aromas straddling red and black fruits (think plum skin) with a little more tannin in the finish from whole cluster fermentation and the contribution of the Calera clonal selection of Pinot Noir. It cannot be categorized as brawny, however, with fetching high-toned floral notes and a new leather aroma that speaks to its youthfulness.

The 2022 is another knockout Pomarium Pinot Noir. With every passing year, Pomarium becomes a more refined and complex cuvée and increasingly a personal favorite Pinot from our vineyard. It is the most muscular wine with aromas straddling red and black fruits (think plum skin) with a little more tannin in the finish from whole cluster fermentation and the contribution of the Calera clonal selection of Pinot Noir. It cannot be categorized as brawny, however, with fetching high-toned floral notes and a new leather aroma that speaks to its youthfulness. This is also a wine to pay attention to as you drink the bottle as it evolves over the course of a meal. Deeper notes emerge, the wine softens, the brashness mellows.