David Hirsch has often said that “the terroir of Hirsch is earthquake terroir,” and while Hirsch Pinots often have a distinctive, brambly, raspberry character (something I find in the Peay Pinots, too), it’s important not to oversimplify what makes a wine taste the way it does. You can’t really say that Pinot Noirs made on the west side of the San Andreas all taste like raspberries and those on the east side like black cherries, for example; there’s no one-to-one correspondence. When a wine has character — real character, not ersatz, industrial, made-in-the-millions-of-cases character — the sources of that character are always complex.
But in regard to the fault, something Andy Peay said about his wines seems apt: “Maybe it’s just that there’s a kind of general energy. There are these two huge plates, the North American and the Pacific, fighting each other, a few miles under our feet. If you get too specific, sure, that’s when what you’re saying hits the bullshit button. But there must be something there.”
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