2007 Viento Vineyard Gewurztraminer, Monterey
Vineyards
The grapes for this wine were grown on a windy terrace overlooking Arroyo Seco to the north and the fertile plain of the great Salinas Valley below. Given its unique hillside perch, the vines of this vineyard experience low soil fertility and a paucity of water causing yields to fall to the 3-4 tons per acre range. Soil structure is uniform across the terrace with a gravelly-loam comprising the floor and shale making up the supporting structure of the hillside.
Each afternoon, cooling winds blow down from the inlet at Elkhorn Slough to take the edge off of the day's heat and allow for very uniform and slow ripening of the grapes. These winds for which the vineyard is named are the key to the coolness of the meso-climate. Planted to the Carmel clone, these blush-skinned beauties possess incredible varietal intensity.
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In the Winery
The grapes were harvested by hand in late September of 2007. Yields were average, 3.0-3.5 tons per acre. Arriving at the winery, we whole-cluster pressed the grapes using a gentle bladder press, cold-settled for 30 hours and then began a very long and slow fermentation lasting over 4 months. Partially barrel-fermented in new French oak, each lot was inoculated with the Steinberg-Geisenheim strain of yeast allowing for fermentation at unusually low temperatures. The long, cold fermentation allowed for the retention of true fruit esters as well as for the formation of an unique “sur lie” creaminess. Finished at 1.2 % residual sugar, the wine was bottled in late March of 2008.
