Harvest Date October 8

Growing Season The long, cool La Niña summer of 1999 promoted excellent flavor retention in the grapes, with high acidity and low pH. The warm Indian summer weather in October fully ripened the fruit to produce some of the best wines of the decade.

Winemaking

• Hand-harvested grapes
• Whole cluster, direct-to-press
• Barrel fermented with indigenous yeast, 9 months to completion
• Concurrent, spontaneous malolactic fermentation
• Barrel aged 14 months, 50% new French oak, sur-lies and stirred
• Unblended, unfined; bottled January 2001