Nose
The only thing about this wine that’s “petite” is the size of the berries we harvest. They say great things come in small packages, and this wine is as great as it is massive in the glass. This wine is not about finesse; it’s about power.
Aromatics of super ripe red and blue fruits, roasted black plum, cool mint and dark chocolate.
Palate
Black cherry liqueur and black-plum flavors meet with toasty oak on the palate, which is framed by polished tannins. It’s a Win-Win.
Growing Conditions
Fruit from the Dusi family’s Lago Vineyard in the Templeton Gap District.
2019 will go down as the greatest cool-weather vintage of the decade, maybe even further back than that. Cool vintages produce excellent wines. Fruit hangs on the vine longer, developing more complexity, revealing more depth of character, leaner fruit profiles, and more prominent minerality in the finished wines.
It’s like God copy-pasted the 2011 vintage, then erased all the problematic weather events that plagued us eight years ago. The 2019 vintage that our region has been releasing will be cherished now and for years to come, as they are lively and approachable at the moment, while possessing the litheness to age gracefully for another decade or more.
Winemaking
100% destemmed, fermented on native yeast, on skin for 14-18 days.
Aging
I’ve aged it in 100% new Hungarian oak barrels for 29 months for some spice.
Appearance
The wine is deep and dark, inky purple.