Palate
Properly cellared, this wine will grow and develop over the next
10 years.
Growing Conditions
The fruit for this Pinot Noir was grown primarily on our Stanly Ranch Estate
Vineyard in Carneros, with some select lots from the RMS Vineyard blended in. With the South Napa earthquake and ongoing drought making it a unique agricultural
landscape, vintners are using words like “quality”, “depth of flavor” and “excellent”
to describe expectations for the 2014 vintage in Napa Valley. Despite the curveballs
from Mother Nature, the weather was generally perfect at the right times, leading to
an abundant and strong crop.
Harvest
Harvest started and ended earlier than usual. The first
grapes were picked on July 30th and nearly all harvest activity was completed by the
third week of October, a full two weeks ahead of normal harvest schedule for most
wineries.
Winemaking
A mix of Dijon and Pommard clones, about one-third of the wine was fermented
with some whole clusters, the rest was fermented in open top fermenters with gentle
punch downs and native fermentations. 2014 was a fantastic year for Pinot Noir, we had wonderful flavors in the fruit,
good acidity and fully ripe stems so we decided to introduce some whole cluster
fermentation. Fermentations were native and quick in our lots; we did malolactic in
barrel to help integrate the oak during our short elevage The wine was racked only
once before bottling.
Aging
The wine was aged 12 months in 30% new
French oak—Allary, Mercurey and Atelier Centre France barrels, medium and steam
bent medium toast—and bottled unfined.
