Nose
Subtle aromas of Bing cherry and raspberry,
along with an earthier undertone.
Palate
On the
palate it is starting to open up, with ripe
cherry and berry joined by well-integrated
oak flavors of cinnamon and vanilla. Incredibly
textured, the wine fills the mouth and
has an intense, very long finish, all of which
suggests a long life ahead of this one, and
greater depth to unfold with age.
Growing Conditions
West Slope comes from the middle portion of our west-sloping 4-90 vineyard
block, a 5.5-acre site at the Donum Ranch. The Donum Selection has
always been the mainstay clone of our Donum Carneros Pinot Noir. Beginning
in 2007, as the vines developed further depth and complexity with age,
this block seemed to cry out to be bottled as a stand-alone, and the West
Slope bottling was born. The West Slope truly represents the culmination
of our search for the top Pinot Noir terroirs in Carneros. After the strong
2012 vintage, we think the 2013 may surpass even that level.
Harvest
After very cool growing seasons in back to back years (2011 & 2012), the 2013 vintage felt quite warm,
although it was actually close to average for Northern California. Bud break occurred very early thanks
to a warm spring, leading to concerns about an extremely early harvest, but we avoided any heat spikes
throughout the summer, which slowed things down in the vineyard. With all of our vineyards (and
seemingly everyone else’s in Sonoma and Napa) tracking around the same sugar levels, the potential for
too much fruit at once made everyone nervous, but cool weather at just the right times in early and late
September created the spacing we needed. The 2013 calendar year was very dry, but fortunately heavy
rains in November and December of 2012 provided enough moisture in the soil and water for irrigation
to last the growing season. One small rain event on September 21st and 22nd created some worries, but
little rain fell and strong winds dried the vineyards out quickly. Our harvest began at our Russian River
Vineyard on September 2, and wrapped up in Carneros on October 8.
Bottling
BOTTLING DATE: February 9, 2015.
Winemaking
We picked our 4-90 block in two passes in 2013, one on October 4 and one on October 7. Even these
few days led to a substantial difference in the fruit, which gave us some pieces to work with in the final
blend, as the West Slope always comes exclusively from the 4-90 block. The fruit was hand harvested and
sorted, de-stemmed, and then left to cold-soak in tank for eight days. Fermentation was allowed to get
fairly warm and the cap was punched down up to four times per day, to fully extract the thick skins of
the Donum selection of Pinot Noir. The tail end of fermentation completed slowly, allowing the juice
more time to sit on the skins. After about four weeks in tank the free run juice was drained to barrel,
where malolactic fermentation occurred over the next two months. The wine was then allowed to age
on the lees an additional year. In January 2015, we selected the best barrels from within the lot, and
blended and bottled the resulting wine in February, 2015.
Aging
63% new French oak
(Francois Frères, Atelier).
Appearance
The 2013 West Slope is medium ruby in
color.
