Palate
Sweet dark cherry and richly concentrated blackberry fruits, a savory, earthy complexity, and toasty oak, vanilla and spice which lingers through the luxuriously long finish.
Growing Conditions
2014 started with worrisome, drought-like conditions, and many feared a parched, dry spring as in 2013. Refreshingly, spring rains came in February and into March providing water for the soils and filling reservoirs. The wine growing season will most be remembered for the August 24th earthquake that occurred just as harvest was commencing in the Napa Valley. The vines were not affected and harvest finished early, bringing in beautiful, healthy fruit.
Bottling
The wine was bottled in August of 2016.
Winemaking
The grapes were hand-harvested with three stages of strict sorting: first, on the vine, then by individual clusters, and then again by single berry following de-stemming. The selected grapes went directly into traditional French oak tanks for cold soak, fermentation and extended maceration – a total of 35 days of wine to skin contact – maximizing the extraction of varietal character and complexity while keeping the tannins round and supple. The new wine was drained and gently pressed into 100% new French-oak barrels for malolactic fermentation, assuring seamless integration of fruit and oak.
Aging
The final blend was assembled through repeated tasting trials over nineteen months of barrel aging.
