This wine is redolent with a floral perfume that enhances the blueberry cream pie, black tea, and pencil shavings aromatics. A bright, juicy acidity frames the blackberry juice and baking spice mid-palate. This in turn leads to a long cran-blackberry finish that has nuances of espresso and ends with the Stags Leap District trademark – powerful, yet velvety smooth tannins. This wine will reward the patient collector with extended aging through 2040. This bottling will pair beautifully with a dish of roast quail on a bed of risotto.
This estate vineyard was harvested on September 24th to maximize the specific ripeness attributes we were aiming for at this vineyard designate site. 2019 began with a wet and cool spring, which pushed bud break out two weeks later than in 2018. The summer growing season was relatively uneventful, with no heat spikes. Due to the moderate weather and late bud break, veraison did not end until early August in some areas of the valley. Autumn brought hot days and cool nights which helped push the grapes to full ripening, while preserving their acidity. As a result, the wines produced from this vintage are full and robust with deep color
The grapes were hand-harvested at night when temperatures often dip to 50˚F – to capture vibrant acidity and fruit expression in the wine. We first cold-soaked the must (crushed grapes) for gentle extraction and then fermented in stainless steel, concrete and oak barrel fermenters at 92˚F. Rigorous pump-overs, increasing during the peak of the fermentation, developed deep color, rich varietal character and fine tannins in the wine. The wine was aged in 70% new French oak barrels to meld the bright fruit expression with oak spice nuances over 26 months of barrel-aging. This wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered to present the attributes of the vineyard in the purest form possible, from the dirt to the glass!
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