Nose
Offering up a tight, Cornas-like bouquet of black and blue fruits, white pepper, spring flowers and salty minerality. Heady, floral- and spice-accented scents of black and blue fruits, incense and licorice.
Palate
It is full-bodied, beautifully concentrated and seamless on the
palate, with ultra-fine tannin and building richness that only starts to develop with a healthy decant.
Stains the palate with intense cassis and blueberry flavors that are lifted by vibrant spice and floral pastille nuances. Becomes sweeter and more energetic with air and finishes with
superb clarity and length and smooth, fully absorbed tannins.
Growing Conditions
The Bone Rock blend comes from the Bone Rock block of James Berry Vineyard. It is a steep terrace of old head trained Syrah vines on a south facing slope. We unearthed fossilized whale bones when we terraced it and then needed to use jack hammers to plant the vines.
The 2011 growing season was an extremely cool year for us.
Not a single day was over 100º the whole season, which we
have never experienced before. Normally a cool season might
be a disaster for the late ripening Rhone varieties we grow, but,
and this is why I am so blessed to be a grape grower on the
Central Coast of California, the weather was mild and without
rain that Fall. When the end of October rolled around in 2011
and most of our fruit was still on the vine, I was more than a little
worried to say the least! It is not uncommon to get some rain in
late October, and since we hadn't even started to pick, I had
reason to be fearful.
Harvest
Thankfully the mild weather held perfectly
and we were able to harvest fully mature fruit throughout
November. Yes, November! Most of our fruit came in between
Halloween and Thanksgiving, very crazy.
Winemaking
So what does this
mean for the wine that resulted from the extremely cool, late
season? Well, it is a little lighter in color, but still quite dark, and
a little lower in alcohol, but still comparatively weighty. The
aromatics are what I find magical on this set of wines, the cool
temperatures kept them amazingly fresh and ethereal. Definitely
on the spice side as opposed to the fruit aspect that we normally
see more of in a warmer year. In the cellar I tried to respect this
character of the 2011 vintage. We used a little more whole
cluster fermentation to soften the tannins and increase the
spiciness and we cut down on the amount of new oak we would
normally use to let the spice shine through even more. We also
increased the amount of concrete aging vessels we use to really
bring it all home with an exclamation point! I really like them,
and I think they will be fascinating wines to follow over the next
20 years.
Our wines are never racked off their lees and are bottled unfined and unfiltered.
- Released: January 2014
Appearance
Inky purple.
