The 2001 vintage is Siduri's fifth year of getting fruit from Archery Summit-and our last year. As you may know, there have been numerous changes at Archery Summit over the past 12 months including changes in ownership and winemakers. With these changes came a change in our relationship with the winery and this has meant that 2001 will be the final Siduri Archery Summit Vineyard Pinot Noir.
We were extraordinarily selective in coming up with the 2001 Siduri Archery Summit Pinot Noir using only a paltry 15% of the barrels in the final blend. Using such a tiny percentage of barrels is the equivalent of financial suicide but it produced the best wine and that is what we are committed to doing.
The 2001 harvest at Archery Summit, like much of Oregon, was surprisingly large. This large crop was not the result of too many shoots or too many clusters (easy problems to recognize and rectify) but, rather, it was the product of larger than normal clusters. This is particularly difficult to deal with as, on a per cluster basis a difference of 16 grams per cluster seems tiny but it may equal out to a 20-25% increase in crop level throughout a vineyard.
We harvested fruit from Archery Summit twice-on October 5th and October 9th. Due to our request for some extra thinning in the vineyard we were able to harvest the grapes at very good sugar levels-23.5-24.5 brix. We experimented with a small amount of whole cluster fermentation on one lot. We also fermented the juice in a tank, 1-ton, and 1/2-ton bins and pressed 5 different sections to barrel separately. All of this produced a wide variety of different Archery Summit wines.
The real challenge came during the blending trials for the single-vineyard wine. There were several lots of very good wine-but not many lots that qualified as special enough to warrant a vineyard-designated wine. Finally, after more than a dozen efforts, we came up with a wine that we really, really liked! Sadly, it only included 3 out of 20 potential Archery Summit barrels. Of course, we wanted to make the finest wine possible and so we bit the bullet and decided to produce a mere 70 cases of 2001 Archery Summit Pinot Noir.
The 2001 Siduri Archery Summit Vineyard Pinot Noir is a more than worthy successor to the 2000 (a wine that just received a 90 in the Wine Spectator). It shows the classic Archery Summit flavor profile with dark berry and cherry flavors layered together with a sweet spice element. The finish shows a touch of tannin making this a particularly good food wine.
WINE STATISTICS
Harvest Dates: October 5, 9
Blend: 100% Archery Summit Estate
Clones: 113, 114, 115
Case Production: 70 cases
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