Nose
This blend displays a beautiful herbaceous nose of anise seed, warm chocolate, and fresh mint.
Palate
On the palette flavors of black fruit, dark chocolate, and slightly earthy nuance of leather are present. On the finish, soft fine tannins leave a light coat on the palette and mingle with a delicate touch of acidity that balance the wine allowing the flavors to linger.
Growing Conditions
The 2021 growing season was very typical through early spring with warm days and cool nights. Early summer through harvest gave us some unexpected heatwaves but plenty of marine breezes and mild weather prevailed. The result was a slight delay of harvest while we waited for acidity, pH and brix to balance creating mature flavors.
Harvest
We source our Quest Cabernet Sauvignon from four of our favorite districts in the area: The Estrella district, with its loamy and gravely river plain slopes and canyons. The San Miguel district with large rolling hills situated on ancient river plains’ edge and riverbanks that possess an intriguing blend of soils with both loam, gravel and calcareous deposits. The Geneseo district, in the heart of the ancient river plains and boasting rich loamy soils. The Paso Robles Highlands district, where ancient seabed calcareous soils are integrated with gravely soils.
Our Cabernet Franc is sourced from vineyards in the Creston district, known for its large daily diurnal swings aided by the Templeton Gap maritime afternoon breezes and gravely soils, and the Paso Robles Highlands district.
Winemaking
The Cabernet & Cabernet Franc are harvested and fermented individually by vineyard lots and then aged in used American oak barrels.
Aging
The lots were racked twice during barrel ageing, blended together and put into 65% New American oak barrels for an additional 3 months. Just prior to bottling the wine is filtered. The 2021 Quest Red Wine was aged for a total of 11 months in oak, blended in summer of 2022 and bottled in late September of 2022.
