2006 Pinot Noir, Edna Valley AVA
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2006 Pinot Noir, Edna Valley AVA |
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The 2006 Edna Valley Pinot Noir seems to have everything! Enticing aromas, bright fruit, good structure, juicy flavors, and just the right amount of oak. Moreover, it represents a happy medium between the older , lighter style of Pinot Noir and the now-trendy, "New World" beefy and thick versions that pass for this varietal. Pinot Noir is without question the most elegant and food-friendly of red wines. It has the bright acidity to stand up to any food, without the heavy tannins that can overpower delicate dishes. The 2006 Edna Valley Pinot Noir is an assemblage from several vineyards within the Edna Valley AVA. We have made use of some excellent fruit from four different clones of Pinot Noir grown at Wolff Vineyards, and of course we have made the most of our close relationship with our neighbors across the road who grow the "Twin Creeks" fruit, which is sold exclusively to us. Three different sources of "Twin Creeks" fruit are represented in our 2006 Pinot Noir.
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2006 Pinot Noir, Edna Valley AVA $24 Alcohol: 13.8% TA: 6.8 g/l pH: 3.42 RS: Dry (<0.05%) Harvested 9/20 - 10/25/2006 23.5 - 24.5 Brix 100% Edna Valley AVA Wolff Vineyards (10%) and Twin Creeks Vineyards (90%) Clones: #113, 115, 2A, 667, 777, and Pommard Bottled July 2, 2007; 2786 cases produced Release Date: October 2007
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Selecting fruit from
our two main sources within the Edna Valley (Wolff Vineyards and the three
growers of the grapes we name "Twin Creeks") , we set as our primary goal to preserve
the aromatics and unique local character through gentle handling and careful
winemaking.
All of our Pinot Noir is handpicked after
careful monitoring of acidity, pH, sugar content and flavor development. We de-stem and very lightly crush the fruit into
small, one-ton capacity fermentors, retaining up to 10% of the stems in some lots.
We use several German and Burgundian
yeast isolates, and also encourage
native yeast fermentations.
Cap management is done by hand, punching
down the must 4 times daily during the 7-14 day skin contact time. We
aim for fermentation temperatures between
75-85°F, warm enough to extract and fix color and tannin, but cool enough to preserve
fruitiness and delicate volatile aromatic components.
Free-run is drained to barrels at about 1% R.S. allowing the completion of
fermentation within the barrels, helping to preserve delicate aromatic components that are
formed at the close of fermentation. We use
100% French oak barrels for Pinot Noir (about 30% new barrels).
We top the barrels weekly and monitor the
progress of malo-lactic fermentation over the course of the winter, expecting completion by
Christmas. At this point, a small
addition of SO2
is introduced to aid in the
clarification and microbiological stabilization of the wine. We leave the wine on the lees throughout its
barrel life, avoiding oxidation and preserving delicate aromatic components.
A
ssembly of the final blend is done by a clean racking of the selected barrels to tank using a nitrogen pressure system that reduces the exposure of the wine to atmospheric oxygen. The wine is allowed to settle for several days before bottling, and is not fined or sterile filtered.