2010 Lloyd

Each of the blocks of these varietals ripens at a different time, thus each is handled separately during harvest with blending taking place after completion of primary fermentation. This form of treatment also allows for a full sensory evaluation of the young wines before they are deemed acceptable for the Lloyd blend. The berries are all destemmed and fermented whole without cracking, which forces each maceration to be long lasting as it takes time for the skins to breakdown and release the juice within the berry. The Malbec spent 24 days on skins, while the Petit Verdot lasted 32 days, with the other varietals falling between these two. Bordeaux varietals demand an oxygen rich environment for fermentation, thus each lot was open top fermented with one punch down and one pump over performed each day. After pressing, lots were evaluated for proper balance and then were combined to a final blend. The completed wine was barrel aged for 31 months with no further racking until bottling.