$22.00

TASTING NOTES

Our Estate Merlot is consistently a multiple Gold Medal award winner. Modest temperatures during harvest allowed the fruit to slowly mature on the vines without the usual rush for picking. To achieve a more complex wine, the grapes were fermented in several different lots with different yeasts. Most lots went through extended maceration post fermentation for up to 22 days. The wine's characteristics are typical to our estate fruit with aromas of dark cherries, plums, licorice and earth. With further aeration the wine reveals complex sweet; layers of blackberry, herbs, cedar and tobacco. In the mouth, the wine is complex, full-bodied and finishes with long, ripe but firm tannins destined to support successful aging for 4-6 years.

ACCOLADES

GOLD - 2008 SF Chronicle Wine Competition

TECHNICAL NOTES

Varietal: 80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon

Production: 1900 Cases

Alcohol: 14.8%

Residual Sugar: 0.34%

Total Acid: 0.61g/100ml

pH: 3.54

Aging: 25% new French, American and European Oak barrels. the rest, older mixed cooperage.

Fermentation: Stainless steel tanks; some lots pressed at dryness, others left for extended maceration

Bottled Date: August 2007

Release Date: February 2008