Palate
Both savory and sweet, with lovely depth and density, abundant dark
cherry and spice notes and a compelling minerality derived from the “Stones,” this is an
exciting expression of our Rockgarden Estate. In both the nose and on the palate, the
syrah brings lush red fruit, with deep raspberry, plum and cherry layers. The cabernet
adds lovely high-toned floral notes, as well as substantial mid-palate weight, with the
mourvèdre contributing nuanced spice elements of white pepper and oregano. The long,
harmonious finish is impeccably balanced by the wine’s signature minerality.
Growing Conditions
While a cold winter and a cool spring helped to keep yields naturally
low, we also applied careful pruning and did fruit drops both to maintain vine balance
and to allow the vines to focus on ripening. As a result, we achieved full ripeness in all
our varieties.
Harvest
Beautiful weather during harvest allowed us to pick each variety exactly
when we wanted. We harvested our Tablas Creek clone of syrah on October 13th, with
our Joseph Phelps clone coming in on October 17th. Our cabernet was harvested on
October 26th, and our mourvèdre ended harvest, arriving in the winery on Halloween.
Bottling
July 2013.
Winemaking
Grapes were harvested by hand and hand-sorted on shaker tables, with
gravity transfer to tank. As is our style with this wine, the syrah and mourvèdre were
fermented whole cluster by native yeast—the syrah for 10 days, the mourvèdre for 15.
The cabernet was destemmed and also fermented with native yeast. The ferments were
kept cool, and only free-run wine was used.
Aging
The lees were excellent, so we aged the
wines with them in neutral puncheons and barrels. Cellaring lasted 20 months, and the
wines were blended three months prior to bottling.
