Our wines begin as numerous small lots of fruit vinified by vineyard block, varietal, clone and rootstock.
At the winery, we taste through each lot regularly to track the evolution of individual wines and to fine tune barrel selections. Ultimately, every single barrel is tasted and evaluated before we put our final blends together for bottling.
Chardonnay is whole cluster pressed, barrel fermented and aged sur lies with batonnage in 100% French oak for 11-15 months, undergoing 100% malolactic fermentation, then bottled unfined and unfiltered. Sauvignon Blanc is whole cluster pressed, fermented and barrel aged in French oak and stainless steel for 9-11 months with zero malolactic fermentation.
Red varietals are picked at full ripeness and maturity. Hand sorted and de-stemmed to small stainless steel tanks and open top fermenters, the wines are pressed off at dryness after 2-4 weeks on the skins. Bordeaux varietals are aged primarily in new French oak for 19 months then bottled unfined and unfiltered. We also like American oak in some of our blends including the Alec's Blend and Syrah. We produce big, spicy, concentrated wines that are balanced yet full of black fruit and mature, mouth-coating tannins.