The 2017 Wildcat Mountain Vineyard Pinot Noir has a vibrant fuchsia color and layers of blackberry cobbler, blueberry, and spice that provide a lifted and luxurious aromatic presence. On the palate, the entry is soft and rich, with a mouth-filling texture that enhances impressions of mulling spice and tobacco. Gentle tannins add to the long, flowing finish of this very complex Pinot.
The fruit was gently destemmed into small open-top fermenters, using state-of-the-art equipment and procedures to avoid any pumping of must. Inoculation with select yeast strains followed a three-day cold soak, and the caps were managed with a combination of pump-overs and punch-downs. Blending fruit from different areas of the vineyard and different clones gives this wine depth and complexity. The Pinot Noir from Arrow Block provides the lush tannin and adds lively fruit aromatics. Saddle Block is an area of the vineyard that is very exposed to the wind, which contributes dense color and a long finish. After 10 months of aging in French oak barrels, 42% new oak, and 7% one-year-old, we bottled the wine on August 14th, 2018.
The 2017 vintage followed a cool, very wet winter. The soils were moist and rich, which at many of our vineyard sites would require extra meticulous care with cover crop management and canopy management. However, with Wildcat Mountain having such stressed conditions and unfertile volcanic soil this did not impact the site. There was a heat spike at the end of August, which led to us picking this vineyard in mid-September. The grapes for our Wildcat Mountain Vineyard Pinot Noir came from two different blocks of Wildcat Mountain, Arrow Block, and Saddle Block. Both are planted to Clone 667 but were planted in different years, 2002 and 1998 respectively. All of these grapes were hand harvested in the cool early morning on September 13th, 2017,
The grapes for this Pinot Noir came exclusively from our Wildcat Mountain Vineyard, owned by Steve MacRostie and his partners Nancy and Tony Lilly. There, the vines dig into the sparse volcanic soil and stand firm against the strong winds that race in off of the Pacific Ocean most afternoons. This fog-shrouded mountaintop vineyard is a classic Sonoma Coast site—cool and challenging—and produces wines of great distinction.
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