Eight Years in the Desert Archives

Orin Swift Eight Years in the Desert

Orin Swift Cellars was a relative newcomer on the California wine scene, having been established in 1998, but not by “Orin Swift,” as I had long assumed. Rather, it was by the now iconic, and iconoclastic, winemaker David Phinney. Orin is Phinney’s father’s middle name and Swift is his mother’s maiden name.

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A Note About Vintages

Although you will see vintage dates throughout Winervana, I don’t put too much importance on them. Major producers these days strive for a consistent style, and largely succeed. (Especially in California, aided by the usually even climate there.) For instance, when shopping for a particular wine, if you have a choice between a current release and one that’s a few years old, there will certainly be differences in price and the character of the wine. But upon release, those two examples of the same wine are likely to be quite similar, especially for New World producers, who often enjoy more reliably consistent weather than Old World producers do. (Of course, global climate change may disrupt things for everybody.)

Wine Enthusiast has an interesting post about this here.