Harvest Date September 5 & 9

Growing Season Earliest bud break this decade, huge fruit set. Vineyard required heavy fruit thinning after set. Warm summer and fall conditions all combined to make 1997 one of the earliest harvests in memory—and one of the best.

Winemaking

• Hand-harvested grapes
• Whole cluster, direct-to-press
• Barrel fermented with indigenous yeast, 4 to 6 months to completion
• Concurrent, spontaneous malolactic fermentation
• Barrel aged 11 months, 49% new French oak, sur-lies and stirred
• Unblended, unfined, unfiltered; bottled August 1998