Pinot Blending Part Two

After blending the Lone Oak Pinot we moved on to the Split Rock Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. We again started with a base wine made from Dijon Clone 667 that had spent about 11 months in 50% new Francois Freres and Remond oak. We added varying percentages of other Dijon clone wine from Split Rock, including 115, 777 and 828. Here is our final blend: 79% 667, 10% 115, 10% 828, 1% 777.

The final Split Rock wine is really intense and fruit forward with a strong acid backbone that will benefit from another 1 to 2 years of bottle aging. The dark cherry and berry flavors are delicious in this wine.

Our final blending was a Pinot Noir from La Encantada Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills (which is abbreviated as Sta. Rita Hills). Our objective on this wine was to make a more elegant and restrained Burgundian style Pinot with less obvious oak. However, we still wanted a high level of intensity, with a broad range of complex flavors. We really went all out, pulling in lots of different barrels and Pinot clones on the final blend. Here it is: 75% 115/777 co-fermented in a neutral barrel, 10% new Radoux barrel of 115/777 co-fermented, 10% 115 from a 1 yr old Francois Freres barrel, and 5% Swan (an older "heritage" Pinot Noir clone named for Joseph Swan) from a neutral barrel.

This wine is drinking very well young. Tons of wild berry and cherry flavors- the wine has the intensity and vibracy of tiny wild fruit. It also has the crispness and acidity associated with a very cool climate vineyard.

My recommendation would be to drink the Lone Oak 2009- 2014, the La Encantada 2009-2018 and to lay down the Split Rock for a year, say 2010-2020 since it has the acidity and tannic structure to go longer.

We are very very happy with the final wines and hope you will try them and like them too!

Cheers,

Dave