Palate
The wine is suave and bordering on sweet it is so rich. Flavors of mountain
marionberry, licorice, marshmallow, black cherry and roses and oak fill the nose and echo on
the smooth palate. We are confident this wine will have a long life in your cellar.
Growing Conditions
The hot
2003 vintage offers generous extract now with evolving perfume. This vintage is particularly ripe and dense,
yet it remains fresh and lithe!
Harvest
Harvested on September 24th, the syrah was ripe and very concentrated yielding 5.5 lbs per
plant with classic 99% berry shrivel across our rows. The cabernet sauvignon was harvested
October 4th, yielding 5.25 lbs per plant, ripe and not shrived. The cuvees were not adjusted in
any way with acid or water. The fruits had generous total organic acids and a natural pH of
over 4.10, but we do not change the natural pH balance of the wine with any acid additions.
Changing the pH with acid additions would ruin its supple texture, its aging and perfume. A
natural alcohol of 14.1% was achieved from 26.7 °brix hydrometer syrah and 23.8°brix
cabernet sauvignon.
Bottling
Bottled unfiltered on April 6th, 2005.
Winemaking
In open top fermenters we did traditional hand punchdown three times a
day. The wines fermented on skins for over two weeks, and only free-run was used. For 11
months, we raised our syrah on its lees. Like our chardonnays, lees contact develops palate
complexity and is better than the flavors of smoky new barrels.
Aging
The wine aged 16 months in
mature and one-third new French Rhone barrels. We further bottle aged
this wine a year. The traditional bottle-aging before sale offers you our wine rested, with full
perfume and full of character.