Our Wines

2004 Russian River Pinot Noir

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About the Vineyard...
Our 2004 vintage represents an evolution in the sourcing of our Russian River Pinot Noir. It comes entirely from Gilbert Perez’s 2 acre vineyard in the southwestern corner of the AVA. His vineyard lies closer to the chilly Pacific breezes as it is less protected by coastal hills. Gilbert’s vineyard is planted entirely to Dijon 115 on characteristic sandy Russian River soils. Formerly having produced the flavorful Gravenstein apples Sebastopol is known for, these soils transition nicely to produce explosively fruity Pinot Noirs with bright cherry flavors and spice.

About the Vintage...
The 2004 vintage was lean on quantity and BIG on quality. The fruit ripened early and quickly due the small crop producing very fruit forward wines with above average acidity. While the balance of the wine bodes well for medium term aging, the up front fruit makes the wines imminently enjoyable upon release.

About the Wine...
The grapes were 95% destemmed into an open top fermenter, 5% whole clusters where added at the bottom of the fermenter for added spice and structure. The 1 ton fermenters were cold soaked for 5 days. Our four separate fermentations were innoculated with RC 212 yeast or fermented with native yeast. Temperature spiked to 94°F ensuring excellent flavor extraction. We punched down by hand 4 times per day and pressed the grapes at dryness. The wine was aged entirely in French barrels from the Francois Freres cooperage, 50% new. The wine was racked once prior to bottling. Wine movements were made by pushing with inert gas all the way until bottling. Wine analysis: Alc. 14 %, pH 3.62, ta 5.9 g/l. , r.s. 0.01 g/l. 290 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...
Lively and lush up front fruit with sweet cherry, raspberry, strawberry, and pomegranite, followed by layers of red licorice, toast, pepper and baking spices. Velvety texture with lush sweet cherry/strawberry fruit and spice echoing on the palate in a long, lingering finish with bright acidity. Hedonistic in the Russian River tradition! Drinks well at release or will age 4 – 6 years.