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January 18, 2006
Racking the 2005's
This week we racked our 2005 wines. The process was started Monday and completed today.
For those that don't know, racking is the process where the wines are pumped from barrel to tanks and then the barrels are cleaned out and sterilized with ozone removing all the dead yeast and other solids that have settled to the bottom of the barrel. The wine is then returned to the barrel.
In our short history at Match, we've been racking 3 or so times per vintage over the course of the 22-24 months the wine spends in the barrel. There's no hard or fast rule... the winemaker decides when its needed based usually on smell. This was the first racking of our 2005's.
On the farming front...
Tomorrow we start pruning Butterdragon.
Posted by matchvineyards at January 18, 2006 07:02 AM
January 17, 2006
A little background on Baconbrook
Someone asked me for a bit of background on Baconbrook. Here was my response:
Baconbrook was our second vineyard. We purchased it a couple of years after Butterdragon. It sits on a 40 acre parcel we bought in 2003 from the founders of Oakford Vineyards. They planned the vineyard and it was planted by, and continues to be maintained by, Pina Vineyard Management. Our original goal was NOT to purchase another vineyard -- remember this was before we'd ever released a bottle of wine and our last thought was to have more wine to sell -- but we really liked the property and wanted the bigger house. Between you and me, Sasha wanted to remove the vineyard or at least lease it out. She saw it as a liability.
She was wrong. When Cary Gott, our winemaker saw the Baconbrook vineyard, he gave a little excited exclamation and assured us that we were really going to love that little vineyard. In fact, he told us we would have trouble letting it go if we ever decided to sell the property. (Initially Baconbrook was going to be a temporary investment.) He urged us to make wine from it.
Flash forward to now... Baconbrook is 2 3/4 acres planted entirely to Cabernet Sauvignon clone 337. Root stock is 101-14. Pina tells the story that they urged the original owners to use a different, drought resistant root stock but he insisted on 101-14 for the quality. It makes a tasty wine, but we're always worried about getting enough water to the young vines. We had a very small harvest in 04, less than 3 tons but in 2005 like everyone else, the harvest came in much larger than expected with almost 6 tons.
It is officially Spring Mountain District but that can be misleading since most people think of the wineries up Spring Mountain Road (Barnett, Pride, etc) when they think Spring Mountain. The vineyard sits on a ridge west of St Helena overlooking the town. You can see it from Spottswood and Madrona Ave. Both vintages have this really big complex character. You feel like you need to brush your teeth after trying the barrel samples. Cary's opinion is that Baconbrook's wines seem more like Howell Mountain than Spring Mountain. We are considering increasing barrel aging time for the Baconbrook. This wine is a monster, but a nice one. If I was to compare to Butterdragon, I'd say Butterdragon is a feminine wine, a romantic embrace from a sophisticated lady. Baconbrook is a wild man, a rogue with rough edges who speaks 5 languages. Most everyone except me has a favorite between the two but there's no clear consensus. I could never choose.
Baconbrook's first vintage, the 2004 will probably be released in Spring 2007. Production is expected to hover around 150 cases most years. Baconbrook's label is like the Butterdragon label except instead of blue, it is a rusty red.
The address is 3060 White Sulphur Springs Road, St. Helena. For those that don't know, Spring Street (Martini House) in St Helena turns in to White Sulphur Springs as it winds in to the western hills. Baconbrook's Google Earth coordinates: 38 29'33.67"N, 122 29'41.71"W. That's our house SSE and the White Sulphur Springs Resort SSW.
Posted by matchvineyards at January 17, 2006 08:49 AM
January 16, 2006
Tasting: 2001 Merus Cabernet Sauvignon
Geeze, it's been so long since I posted to this blog. Here's a tasting note on a great wine: the 2001 Merus Cabernet Sauvignon.
Rich, dark, color. Fruit driven nose. This wine is dense with dark fruits of currant and blackberry, liquorice, brown sugar, molasses, spicey oak, and a bit of wood smoke. This fantastic wine is so well made that it can be enjoyed at almost any age but it is REALLY young now. You need a pretty heft meal to counteract the puckering tannins. Try again on its 8th birthday and enjoy until it's old enough to get its driver's license.
(A note... although one would figure that the tannins will tame in time and that this wine will improve -- it does seem balanced -- it did fail the poor man's aging test: it did not appreciably improve over the course of an evening in the decanter. Honestly, I don't know what to make of this.)
Posted by matchvineyards at January 16, 2006 10:02 PM
