Nose
Seavey’s 2016 Merlot leads with a nose rich with aromas of pomegranates, plums, cherries, and toasted coffee beans.
Palate
On the palate, the wine is rich, powerful and herbaceous with hints of luxurious black fruits, chocolate, and leather. This Merlot offers an intriguing mix of rugged, masculine fruit from our steep hillside vineyards and more fragrant feminine fruit from our loamy soils resulting in a balanced wonderfully aromatic wine with a creamy and lush mouthfeel.
Growing Conditions
Seavey’s 23rd vintage of single-vineyard estate Merlot comes entirely from grapes grown on the steep hillside blocks of our estate which we have now been farming for 40 years. The 2016 growing season was marked by ideal weather. It started off warm, but July and August were mild, resulting in a long growing season with lots of hang-time which allowed the grapes to progress to perfect ripeness.
Bottling
June 2018
Winemaking
Seavey separately harvests, vinifies and ages each vineyard block of our grapes. Our winemaking follows classic Bordeaux methods with whole-berry fermentation. In the cool of the early morning harvest, grapes from our 2016 harvest were promptly de-stemmed and the uncrushed berries were gently transferred into fermentation tanks. In order to carefully manage the tannins and resulting wine texture, the grapes were neither crushed nor run through a pump. Followed by whole-berry fermentation.
Aging
The wine was aged in French oak barrels (33% new) for 20 months before bottling.
