Growing Conditions
Outpost was established in 1998 with the vision of producing wines that are a living, breathing embodiment of this magical place. Truly one of the world’s great Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel growing regions, the unique terroir of the Outpost vineyards – the hard, rocky red soil, high altitude, gentle cooling breezes and sunny western exposure – produces fruit of incredible intensity and richness, with a distinctive spice you simply cannot find anywhere else.
Capturing the essence of the land’s rugged terrain, Outpost creates world-class 100% varietal bottlings of Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah and Grenache from our own hand-cultivated, organically farmed 28 acre estate vineyard.
Due to the very warm and dry spring in 2008, the berries in the
Grenache block were smaller than we had ever seen. All of the
elements present here are in greater abundance than ever before:
Color, tannin, savory elements and fruit extract.
Harvest
Outpost grapes are harvested late in the season – by hand, at dawn – to preserve the full intensity and distinctive spicy character of the mountain fruit. The grapes are processed with as little manipulation as possible. Grapes from each block within the vineyard are fermented separately so that our winemaking team can be very selective about the lots that comprise the final blend. Wines are neither fined nor filtered allowing for the full expression of the vintages’ potential.
Like the 2007, we bled 5% juice
from the tank 24hours into cold soaking to move the color of this
wine to a more solid red. We also began the fermentation with 50%
whole cluster, but in 2008, we kept aside a little 100% stem
ferment that eventually was blended into the final wine. Our
finished blend is a bit closer to 60% whole cluster in 2008 as
opposed to the 50% in 2005-2007.
Aging
100% 1-5 year old French oak barrels.
Appearance
Though the
color may once again not suggest it, we’d recommend sitting on
this wine for a couple of years.
