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 make the final cut for the vineyard-designated wines. We are also concerned that the high cost of farming to these small yields is matched by the high quality of the wines we release. This way of thinking has provided us with an opportunity to create a village wine that is offered at a price that will appeal to many. This inaugural release of the Santa Lucia Highlands, 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 10 barrels from Garys’ Vineyard and 24 barrels of Sleepy Hollow Vineyard Pinot Noir.

The Harvest
Vintage 2001 is with out a doubt my favorite vintage to date for Arcadian. Harvest began on September 23rd for Garys’ and October 8th for Sleepy Hollow. Both Gary’s and Sleepy Hollow produced delightful fruit. In fact anyone of the barrels selected for this cuvee could have been part of final composition for the single vineyard designates. I had more difficulty selecting out the barrels for this cuvee, they were all so good.

Yields were right were we like them at 35 hectoliters per hectare which for a village wine is extremely low. This is the third crop produced from Garys’ vineyard and the first time I see the evolution of what now has become a foregone conclusion: This is a truly great site.

Sleepy Hollow on the other hand continues to show its maturity with continually darker colored fruit despite the higher pH. Its contribution to the cuvee is its extremely silky texture and compelling flavor profile.

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 to be 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 we subject them to another sorting on the table and then into the fermenters. This whole cluster fermentation technique we believe 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 the color and flavor to be extracted 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 will remain in barrel for 16 months without racking and will be bottled without fining or filtration. This wine received an additional six months of bottle ageing before release.