Vineyard Notes
The 2018 Syrah comes from Devil’s Canyon, otherwise known as Block 6. This block is planted on our steepest slope, containing nearly no topsoil and faces directly Southwest. While an unpleasant site to farm and harvest, it produces the most exhilarating fruit on our estate. The Grenache blended in comes from our head trained block 13 on the top of our Estate. This vintage produced perfect Paso Robles conditions of ample winter rainfall, gentle spring for flowering and fruit set, followed by warm but not overly hot summer providing perfect conditions for prolonged ripening. This let us pick the fruit in October, a full month later than usual.
Winemaker Notes
The Syrah for this vintage was de-stemmed and fermented in 3.5 ton open top concrete tanks. Twice daily pump overs were performed until 70% completion of fermentation. We then, changed to gentle punch downs to ease extraction of flavors for a total of 19 days on skins. The tanks were pressed and 45% racked into a new French Gamba and Fouially barrels. The remaining 55% was aged in neutral French barrels. Aged for 18 months with no racking and topped exclusively with Estate Grenache from block 14 to add a bit of lighter fruit to the overall structure. After racking, a bit more Estate Grenache has added to the final blend and was then bottled with no fining or filtration.
Production Notes
845 cases
