This is our no-holds-barred, pedal-to-the-metal, guns-blazing, full boogie tilt expression of what we would like to be not a varietal or regional expression, but the “winner of the first empty glass” contest! When you taste this wine, think not of a particular grape or appellation, think instead of how wine can love your mouth, how front-to-back pull through can be achieved with just a little bit of blending. When we create our single-vineyard designates, we look for the pure voice of the vineyard to speak its piece. The dips and the valleys can only add to the peak, the high notes of the vineyard. For a blend, we put under the microscope every pothole and dip in the road, and work to create a wine that, from first sip to last lingering aftertaste, provides pleasure and satisfaction, all wrapped up in one big Peloton!
Tasting notes:
This is a wine from a cool vintage and a fair amount of Mendocino old vines, both Carignane and Zin. The result is a racy, complex wine, with a moderate color presentation to the eye and a lot of zip on the fore-palate. Aromas are more towards red fruits, even strawberries, with hints of woodruff and smoke playing against delicate floral tones. The complexity continues from nose to mouth, with layers of fruit flavors up front again playing off the pine-duff structure towards the back end of the palate. With great acid and balance, this wine continues to open up over an evening of air.
Technical Data:
• Vineyards: From all across our wine portfolio in the North Coast, ranging from Southern Sonoma to the Redwood Valley in Mendocino County.
• Varietal composition:
o Carignane, amazing gnarled old vines (AGOV), Caballo Blanco Vineyard: 32%. One of the best old-vine, dry-farmed Carignane vineyards in the state, this vineyard is lovingly and organically tended by the Baltins family in Mendocino County.
o Pinot noir, all of our vineyard designates: 20%
o Chardonnay, all of our vineyard designates: 18%
o o Syrah, from both the Gabrielli Vineyard in Mendocino and Silver Pines on Sonoma Mt: 15.6%
o Zinfandel, all from the Aldine “Talmage Bench” old vines: 13%
o Sangiovese, Masut Vineyard, Redwood Valley: less than 1%. We expect more good things from Jake Fetzer, who biodynamically farms this vineyard near the top of Black Mountain at nearly 2800’ altitude!
o Gewurztraminer, Piner Creek Ranch (Russian River): Just enough to lift the edges of the aromatic envelope!
o Pinot Meunier, o And for the grand finale - just a kiss of Pinot Meunier
• Harvest: Mid-September to late October – spanning the entire breadth of harvest, first-to-last grapes!
• Fermentation: a wild cacophony of techniques and critters, from wild to Brunello yeast selections. Secondary fermentation was completely spontaneous, like the wine…
• Barrel aging: 16 months in French oak with only a kiss of new wood (about 8%).
• Bottling: 2,115 cases of this enigmatic wine bottled in late Dec 2006
o pH/TA: 3.62/7.5
o 14.8% alcohol
o Residual sugar: 0.18% (dry)
o Appellation: North Coast (Sonoma and Mendocino Counties)
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