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A Q&A with Andy Peay
What drew you to the remote area of the Sonoma coast where Peay Vineyards is? Why is that where you wanted to start a vineyard?
My brother Nick and I were attracted to wines that were singular and transparent to site. Wines that could not come from any place other than where they were from, as the people who owned the land and made the wine knew they had something special to share and wanted to capture that in the bottle. As a result, they were not big, rich or heavy-handed wines that were obscured by winemaking decisions. These were wines of terroir (both physical and human) and were mostly from Europe. In the early 1990s, California was still mostly making wines that were very fruit-forward and powerful. Wines of impact but perhaps not really of complexity. Nick said we can make complex, balanced, harmonious wines of place in California, but we need to get away from the warm California sun that obscures site specificity and sidle up to the cooling marine influence from the Pacific Ocean. We ended up traveling all over the coast of California and found a spot on the Redwood Coast that everyone said was too cold, too wet and definitely too remote to farm grapes. Perfect. We planted a 53-acre vineyard on a ridgetop on the West Sonoma Coast along the San Andreas Fault just three miles from the Pacific Ocean. We are heavily impacted by the marine layer with lots of fog, wind and dappled sunlight. The wines reflect this singular location and are bright, focused and pure. Wines that could only come from Peay Vineyards on the West Sonoma Coast.
You work Peay Vineyards with your brother and sister-in-law, right? What is it like to work with family?
Ha! Great question. I feel very lucky to share in this endeavor with Nick and Vanessa. We are quite different people, and what we are each well suited to do, the other two are less so. That is key. We each have our area of expertise. I do not have the experience and skill to make wines as well as Vanessa Wong, our incredible winemaker. And Nick has a mechanical and scientific mind and a way with vines that I do not. I am a wine lover and a communicator. I drink a lot of wine from all over the world and attempt to share my enthusiasm and knowledge in ways that will infect other people with my passion for wine.
Importantly, as family, we also trust and understand one another and the intention and dedication each of us have to our jobs. But we do not need to communicate constantly (no meetings!) and avoid getting caught up in the subtext that can linger in communication among family members. So, it is a gift to work with family, but one that took us about five years to develop as we built that foundation of trust among us. It wasn’t automatic or necessarily conflict-free right out of the gate. Now, it is a well-oiled machine.
When you are coming to a place like Blackberry Farm to bring wines for a special event, how do you consider what bottles you want to select?
I want to bring wines that I think will make as good an impression as I possibly can! Wines that are not only at their ideal age for dunking but will also pair well with the chefs’ cuisine. This year, I am featuring my wines but penciled a little outside of the lines to also focus on wines from my region. We just formed a new American Viticultural Area – the West Sonoma Coast AVA – and it is like no other place in the world. And though I am clearly biased, I believe these wines represent the best America has to offer and are the future of American wine. In addition to focusing on my region during the first evening’s dinner, for the seminar, Andy Chabot and I will lead a blind tasting of Pinot Noir from around the world. We hope by tasting these wines “blind” without knowing the region, price or possessing any outside knowledge, each of us will discover what we enjoy in Pinot Noir and perhaps what regions are making wines that each attendee prefers.
The essence of the Passing the Torch event is to celebrate the spirit and energy of the next generations. When you think about future generations of winemakers, what do you hope to see from them in the winemaking industry?
This is absolutely the best time in our history to drink American wines. Over the past 50 years, American wine growers have pushed further afield in an attempt to discover areas that can make wines that thrill them and their consumers. Our winemakers hail from all over the world and each brings their own cultural background that informs their palate and what they seek in wine. But I think they all share a passion for discovery and possess that unique American sense of possibility. I do not see that changing and feel we are all lucky to be alive and drinking wines from America right now.
Lastly, a piece of advice anyone can benefit from. You’re invited to a dinner party, and you don’t know what the menu is. What type of wine do you recommend bringing to share?
I always recommend you bring a bottle of wine that you love. Not what the critic loves. Or the retailer. Or your friend, the wine snob. If you like the wine, your enthusiasm for it will be infectious and genuine, and that sets the table for a good time.
Andy Peay is returning to Blackberry Farm as the guest winemaker for the annual Passing the Torch event, happening August 25-28, 2024. Click here to learn more about the event.