This past week saw the racking of the nine from 2009. That’s nine barrels of Oregon Pinot noir, our entire first year of production. Racking means moving the still young wines from barrel to barrel, to show them some oxygen and carefully separate them from their sediment. This is the only time the 2009s will be moved, prior to blending and bottling at the end of summer. 2009 was a hot year, and we wondered if the wines even needed racking. The wines are already so open and delicious, they didn’t seem to need the movement. Racking helps more tightly wound wines soften. These 2009s will be bottled unfiltered, so racking gently ended up giving us the chance to clairfy the wines without showing too much oxygen.