The Vintage

I have spoken of this vintage with reference to many of our other wines and can only reiterate that 2002 was a grand vintage. With all of the stars in alignment we picked some beautiful fruit.

Harvest took place on October 14th, a very foggy morning typical of the Santa Rita Hills. Fruit set was near perfect with virtually no shot berries and average to small clusters. We harvested a total of 5.86 tons of Estrella clone on 2.5 acres.

Lafond Vineyard is a pristine property extremely well managed and supremely situated along Santa Rosa Road in the Santa Rita Hills AVA, part of the western Santa Ynez Valley. This is an area that has recently become the hotbed for Pinot Noir boasting other great properties such as Fiddlestix Vineyard, Sanford and Benedict Vineyard, and Seasmoke to name a few. The Lafond family chose to work with multiple clones and multiple rootstocks and planted to a very tight 4 X 6 spacing utilizing a vertical shoot positioning trellis. The soil is comprised of sandy and gravelly loam providing good drainage.

Approximately 20% of the fruit was retained as whole cluster with the balance destemmed but not crushed. The pH in the juice was slightly elevated, possible due to the salinity in the soil as a result of the drought, so an adjustment of 1 gram per liter of Tartaric was added. Juice was cold soaked to 14 degrees centigrade for 5 days. The total cuvaison lasted 17 days and peak fermentation reached 27 degrees centigrade.

Free run was transferred directly to barrel from fermenters and the press wine went directly to barrel from the press. 25 % new and 75 % one year old French Oak from Francois Freres was the selected vessels for elevage. The wines were racked after the second winter into two year old barrels. Total elevage lasted 22 months. The finished wine was bottled without fining or filtration and aged in bottle 14 months before release.

A richer more opulent wine that reminds me more of Australia than France, fairly slick and large it is a heifer. La Genisse carries two meanings the first a baby heifer and the second a voluptuous woman. Both are broad and curvy and are good physical descriptors for this wine.