2001 Sleepy Hollow Vineyard Pinot Noir

The Harvest
Every year Sleepy Hollow Vineyard faces the most difficult set of challenges from Mother Nature. Our piece at the top of the hill in set A does not get much sunlight and lives much of the time in the fog and wind. To take advantage of the reduced sunlight we separate the foliage from the fruiting zone to get more direct light onto the berries and to thicken the skins. These set of vines are susceptible to botrytis and mildew and more recently mealy bug infestation. Mother Nature’s constant attack on these vines is a supreme challenge to the concept of winegrowing and often is the most satisfying work that I do. 

The two thousand one vintage exhibited a much more common weather pattern with harvest running slightly behind schedule. We began harvest here on October 8thth completing on the 10th. There was approximately 15% gray rot from the moisture given off by the dense morning fog. Yields were reduced by triage to 30 hectoliters per hectare and sugars soaked up to 14.5% potential alcohol as a result of the dehydration. This is a classic vintage and one of my favorite thus far. Many critics have given the vintage a good review but I would put it somewhere much higher. It will prove to be an excellent vintage for those who don’t produce in the so called Cali style of rip fruit with low acid. We think this prove to be an excellent vintage for us.

The Vineyard
Sleepy Hollow Vineyard is situated along the Santa Lucia bench in the northwestern section of the Salinas Valley of Monterey County.  Planted to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in 1974, it was independently owned until 1990 when Robert Talbott purchased the property for his Talbott Winery. 

The vineyard is broken up into two major parcels: A and B.  Within Parcel A, we farm 6 acres in Set 1 South, which is located at the top of the gently sloping vineyard.  We select blocks located high on the slopes to ensure good drainage and intensity of flavors in the grapes.  Soils consist of sandy loam and Monterey shale making for excellent drainage.  The vines are on their own roots and are a combination of Martini and an upright clone the French call “Pinot Droid.â€?  Spacing is set at 5x6 with a split canopy trellis designed to acclimate the clusters to the sun early in the year, thus avoiding sunburn later in the summer.  This trellis design also helps to ripen the fruit more evenly.  Pruning is conducted in the winter with only 2 spurs per cordon kept.  And in the spring, we prune to 2 clusters per cane

Production
Only the best Pinot Noir grape clusters are handpicked in the vineyard in the early morning hours when the fruit is still cool.  Pinot Noir has a tendency to ferment very quickly thus preventing the wine full color and flavor extraction. To arrest the on-set of immediate fermentation, dry ice is added to the small open top fermenting vats.  This “cold soakâ€? (at 45 ËšF) slows fermentation while saturating the juice with rich fruit flavor and true Pinot Noir color from prolonged contact with the grape skins.  Concomitant with the primary fermentation is malolactic fermentation (malic acid to lactic acid), which reduces the total acid and imparts softness to the wine. The grapes are pigeaged (foot treaded) 3 to 5 times daily to extract color and tannins.  We then press the wine at 1 – 2 % sugar and allow it to complete fermentation in barrel; this helps integrate the qualities of oak in the wine.  The wine was aged in new François Frères 100% French oak barrels for 17 months and bottled unfined and unfiltered. The bottled wine was further aged 12 months to allow the integration of the wine to become more complete

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