Palate
This vintage is bold and textural, exhibiting mouthwatering cherry, plum and spice notes.
Growing Conditions
Hidden Valley Vineyard is our estate vineyard, located in the Templeton gap area of Paso Robles’ Westside. The sloping terrain drains rapidly and the vines enjoy long warm days and cool nights throughout the growing season. The mature, cane pruned vines produce low yields of intense and expressive fruit. The 2012 Illuminatus is perhaps our favorite sangiovese vintage so far from our estate vineyard. The 2012 growing season was almost ideal in most respects and the fruit was of particularly high quality. The early part of the season was cool and dry. A heat wave just ahead of veraison stressed the vines, keeping the cluster sizes in check and concentrating the flavors and aromas.
Harvest
The grapes were harvested on November 2, 2012.
Bottling
This vintage was racked and bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Winemaking
After 20 days on the skins, the wine was pressed direct to barrel.
Aging
The wine aged in 30% new French oak for 18 months. Before release, the wine was allowed an additional year of bottle aging.
