2019 Red Dog Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma Mountain
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Wine Specs
Vintage
2019
Varietal
Pinot Noir
Appellation
Sonoma Mountain
Vineyard Designation
Red Dog
Aging
19 months, 50% new
Alcohol %
14.4
Wine Profile
Tasting Notes
An amazing dark garnet hue really gets your attention on this intense Pinot. It’s dense on the nose, with concentrated boysenberry, black cherry, graphite, basil, briar, blackberry and a fun floral note. The palate is taut, deep and mouth-filling with big, juicy, dark, tarry flavors of cherry-vanilla parfait, redwood bark and granite. This wine is both big and elegant; it’s inviting, comforting and superbly balanced, promising a long fruitful life.
Vineyard Notes
Located high on the northwest flank of Sonoma Mountain, this panoramic mountainside site is the recipient of coastal fog and cool air flowing from the chilly Pacific through the Petaluma Gap and slamming directly into the upper reaches of Sonoma Mountain. The soils are low-vigor loamy clays. This site ripens very slowly, providing perfect conditions for complete and complex flavor development. Fog often persists in the mornings when the sun has risen above the eastern slope and by the time the afternoon sun has made its impact on the western slope, the cold air and fog begin their journey back from coast to mountain.
Production Notes
We picked Red Dog October 6, the auspicious day Marta proposed to me many years ago. We fermented in our smallest fermenters (one ton), starting with 25% of the grapes as whole clusters. The balance of the fruit was gently destemmed in order to retain whole berries without expelling the seeds. A feral fermentation spontaneously began about a week after picking and was finished in another eight days. We sealed the fermenters for an extended maceration and finally pressed 42 days after harvest. The wine was aged in six French oak barrels for 21 months.
Production
2 barrels / 150 cases made