Wines

For our wines, we carefully select only grapes from old-growth, hillside vineyards with low harvest-yields to intensify the ripe flavors and aromas of the grapes.  Moreover, we hand-harvest the grapes when they taste ripe, not when they have a predetermined sugar level (we have found that, even with a theoretical ideal sugar level, the grapes do not necessarily have the flavors we want, so we pick on how they taste), and then hand-sort the grapes to help ensure that only the best fruit is used in our wine.  We then craft our wine with a maximal naturalist / minimal interventionist approach, age our wine only in high-quality French oak barrels, and bottle our wine when the ripe berry flavors have been enriched, but not overwhelmed, by the oak.

Our objective is to make a food-friendly, high-quality, medium-bodied, well-integrated, moderate-alcohol wine that will complement your food, and that will enable you to taste and experience the natural, ripe, lush flavors and bouquet, and the rich varietal character and supple mouth-feel of our wine.

We produce a limited selection and quantity of wines in order to maintain the artisan, high-quality standards of our wine.  Specifically, if we think the grapes are suitable at harvest, we produce some of the following varietal red wines:

Our 2006 vintage wines have now been released for your enjoyment!   However, relax, we have reserved some of our previous vintage wines for you on a first-come, first-served basis.  

Our 2006 vintage wines include Cabernet Sauvignon (Stags Leap District), Syrah (Calif.Shenandoah Valley), and Zinfandel (Russian River Valley), and are all crafted in our elegant, food-friendly style:

• Our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon received the very prestigious Platinum Medal at the 2009 Wine Critics International Wine Competition. 

• Our 2006 Syrah received the very prestigious Double-Gold Medal at the 2009 San Francisco International Wine Competition. 

• Our 2006 Zinfandel received the prestigious Silver Medal at the 2009 San Francisco International Wine Competition.

All of our 2006 wines were (1) barrel-aged for 17 months in high-quality French oak barrels (we used a mix of new and one-vintage-old barrels in order to give the wines the optimum time in the barrels to soften their tannins, to integrate their flavors, and to extract enough oak tannins to enhance the flavor and taste complexity of our wines without over-whelming the fruit flavors), and then (2) bottle-aged for 12 months before releasing them to give the wines time to "relax" (to get over "bottle shock") and to further develop their soft tannins, rich flavors, and balanced, smooth, mouth-feel and finish.

All of our wines have been crafted in an elegant, medium-bodied, very food-friendly style, with moderate-alcohol and soft French oak tannins, and are well-integrated, well-balanced with ripe berry flavors and delicious, subtle bouquets of varietal fruits and aromas:

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon This varietal is made from world-class grapes grown in the Stags Leap District appellation in Napa Valley.  It is a fruit-forward, lusciously structured, supple wine with a medium-bodied mouthfeel and subtle flavors of ripe currant (cassis), blackberry, plum, and black pepper. <<Click image for larger view	2006 Syrah This varietal is made from mature-vine grapes from the the highly-regarded California Shenandoah Valley appellation in Amador County.   It is a delicious, fruit-forward, medium-bodied wine with subtle flavors of ripe black cherry, blackberry, leather, mushroom, and black pepper. <<Click image for larger view
2006 Zinfandel This varietal is made from old-vine grapes from the highly-acclaimed Russian River Valley appellation in Sonoma County.  It is a medium-bodied, very supple, well-balanced wine with subtle flavors of ripe black cherry, blackberry, black pepper, licorice, and leather. << Click image for larger view

If you would like to purchase our wines, please go to our Order page.  If you would like to receive our Wine Club discounts and first notification of our next wine release, please join our Wine Club.