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2005 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 Vineyard A Set 1 south 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 sets of vines are susceptible to botrytis and must be vigorously managed. Mother Nature’s constant attack on these very old vines is a supreme challenge to the concept of winegrowing and often is the most satisfying vineyard work that I do.
The 2005 growing season started off with much higher than usual rainfall in the winter and spring. This rain leached the salts out of the soils and resulted in full field capacity. For most varieties there was a very good berry set in the spring; however, higher than normal canopy vigor created an early need to balance crop loads. Many farmers saw a huge crop load early and began dropping fruit. Even with the early dropping of fruit, the 2005 crop for most varieties was larger than normal and similar to 1997. While the 2005 crop was large, it was also very balanced and even. The largeness of the crop was due mainly to big clusters and larger berry size. Harvest proceeded at an even and measured pace. Thankfully, the weather was generally free of heat spikes, allowing the fruit to ripen at an even pace. These were ideal growing conditions and resulted in an overall excellent quality for this year’s crop.
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 1970, 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 10 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.� Spacing is set at 6 x 10 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.
The 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 soak� (at 45 ˚F) 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 36 month extra tight grain chateaux Sirugue barrels 40% of which is new. The finished wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered. The bottled wine was further aged 14 months to allow the integration of the wine to become more complete.
3.44 pH |
1,340 - six packs |
|
6.7 g/l |
60 - magnum bottles |
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14.1 % alcohol |
6 - 5 liter bottles |
|
.2 ppm Dissolved Oxygen |
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