The Cuvee

As a winegrower, I am interested primarily in growing the best possible fruit we can to achieve world-class wines. To that end, we are highly selective in the barrels that age our vineyard-designated wines. We also maintain that the high cost of farming to small yields is matched to the high quality of wine we release. This way of thinking has provided us the opportunity to create a village wine, offered at a very appealing price. This inaugural release of the Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir, selected from two of our premier cru vineyards, is the result of this strict approval of barrels into the vineyard-designated program. The cuvee is comprised of 20 barrels from Garys’ Vineyard and 19 barrels of Sleepy Hollow Vineyard.

Vintage 2000 was normal, maybe even a tad early after two significantly late vintages in’98 and ’99. By all accounts 2000 was an easy vintage to manage as very little threatened the vines or the set. Although, we did see the beginnings of vine mealy bug damage for the first time in Sleepy Hollow Vineyard, it had not significantly affected the vines and we are working to eradicate this problem from the vineyard.

Yields were larger (45 hectoliters per hectare) than we would have liked in Garys’ Vineyard. This is the second crop produced from this exciting vineyard and we are working to learn the proper crop load in decidedly richer soil. As the vines mature and we better understand the relationship with Mother Nature and these vines, we will discover how to coax the best fruit from this potentially outstanding site.

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." 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.

The Production

My fascination with the great wines of Burgundy has taken me down the path of artisan-style winemaking. Choosing to rely not only on modern science but my own gut instinct as to how to allow the fruit to develop into the wine that Mother Nature had intended. I have listened to and emulated those Burgundian artisans I most admired, employing their traditional techniques to bring forth the uniqueness of these particular rows within these two vineyards.

The grapes undergo a tremendous amount of triage (sorting) both in the vineyard and in the cellar. I consider this one of the most significant practices we employ. We can truly say only the best grapes go into our fermenters. Once they are received into the cellar, they are sorted on the table and go directly into the fermenters. This whole cluster fermentation technique contributes significantly to the aromatics and texture of our wines. It is the gentlest manipulation of Pinot Noir grapes possible.

Once in the fermenters, we cover the cap in dry ice to arrest any spontaneous fermentation that may occur. We prefer a pre-fermentation maceration (cold-soaking) allowing full color and flavor extraction in the absence of fermentation for two or three days. During this time we pigeage (foot tread) twice a day increasing to five times a day at peak fermentation. The wine is usually pressed of at 1 or 2 brix into François Freres barrels from the Allier forest in the center of France. The wine remains in barrel for 16 months without racking and is bottled without fining or filtration. This wine received an additional six months of bottle ageing before release. We produced 857 cases of this tasty pinot noir.