Vineyard Notes
Located at the peak of the Santa Lucia Mountains, the York Mountain AVA, perfectly combines the warmth of Paso Robles with a closer proximity to the Pacific Ocean which provides ample cooling to allow for a long ripening process. The Carver Vineyard was planted in 1968, and is one of the area’s most renowned sources of Cabernet. These old cane pruned vines are fully mature and produce astounding fruit.
Winemaker Notes
The fruit was handpicked and cluster sorted before de-stemming. The fruit was gravity fed, uncrushed, into 2-ton open top stainless fermenters. The berries were cold soaked under CO2 for 5 days to allow for color extractions. The tanks were allowed to warm and fermentation begun. The cap was punched down 2 times daily. Every other day a full delastage, the removal of all the juice to allow gravity pressing of the fruit to gently release more juice, was performed. After 28 days, the juice was pressed off the skins and settled in tank for 2 days to remove excess phenolics from the extended maceration. From here, the wine was allowed to finish malo-lactic fermentation in barrel. It was only racked once, allowing the sur lie aging to develop richness and body over a long 29 months in barrel. Bottled unfined with only course filtration to remove lees at the last possible moment. This wine was made with the idea of maximizing the fruit, tannin and acidity the vineyard is capable of producing.
