94 Points, Wine Enthusiast
94 Points, James Suckling
92 Points, Wine Independent
92 Points, Decanter
Winemaker’s Notes
Black plum, juicy blackberry and black olive are threaded with anise, graphite, and vanillin from the toasted barrel. Flavors of dried black plum and blackberry are complimented with a hint of black licorice. The wine has a freshness to it with texture and a graceful, fine grain tannin.
Winemaking
The fruit was hand-harvested in the cool morning hours and brought to the winery in half-ton bins. At the winery, the clusters were sorted using a double sorting system. First, the clusters were sorted by hand. The fruit then ran through a small destemmer removing stems from the grapes before the individual berries being sorted to ensure the ideal grapes were selected. These berries were delivered to a fermenter where there was a period of resting on skins. Warm fermentation temperatures were encouraged along with gentle cap maceration to achieve the desired color and structure for the wine before an extended maceration time on skins prior to final pressing. The wine was transferred directly to barrel for 20 months of maturation.
