As many of you know, we've been working hard to increase the quality of our Pisoni Vineyard offering.
In 2008 we chose to prune one part of our Big Block section six weeks later than the rest of the vineyard.
This worked out so well (and was the source of our Eddie's Block wine), that we chose to prune all of
our Big Block section two months later than the rest of the vineyard in 2009. The goal in doing this has
been to delay ripening, thus avoiding, at least at the critical point close to harvest, the heat spikes of late
August and early September. However, with 2009 being the third year of a drought, we found that the
grapes still matured at close to the same time as sections pruned earlier. And yet, we love this wine --
in some way, more than any Pisoni we've produced since 1999.
The 2009 Siduri Pisoni Vineyard Pinot Noir is a blend of 8 barrels from the Big Block Section, 5 barrels
from the Hermanos' section, and two barrels from the Tina's section. In both Big Block and Hermanos
we utilized some whole clusters in the fermentation as the stems showed good levels of ripeness. After
14-18 days on the skins we pressed the wine directly, using gravity, to French oak. Unlike most previous
vintages, we felt that the 2009 would benefit from racking, so once we decided on the barrels in the final
blend we racked them together and then back to barrel several months prior to bottling.
One of the truly distinguishing characteristics of most 2009 California Pinot Noirs is their structure. This
is certainly true with the 2009 Siduri Pisoni Vineyard Pinot Noir. While this wine shows the great fruit
concentration of previous releases, and the complexity of the better vintages from this vineyard, it is balanced
out with the backbone and structure that we can only remember from the 1999 vintage (our favorite
Pisoni previously). This is a wine that, while it drinks well now, will only improve with several years
in the cellar.
Cases: 364
Released: September 2010
Click here for a printer-friendly version of this page
|
