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2000 Dry Riesling Reserve

(updated 11/9/01)

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The Wine

Our Dry Riesling is produced in very limited quantities from a 1.1 acre block on our Corral Creek Vineyard, largely for top-end restaurants or dry riesling freaks. This is a big wine with brilliant, rich fruit, bright acid and a weighty palate. The acidity provides ageability and great structure, making it amazing with food and cleansing on the palate. It continues the viscous, intense, Alsatian styled wines that our Pinot Gris Reserve starts; it is harvested late (almost always in November) with full ripeness and a touch of botrytis, giving the most intense dry riesling we can make. Some of our customers consider this the best domestic riesling made-help us cultivate a Riesling Renaissance.

The Vineyard

Corral Creek, although not our oldest estate vineyard, was begun in 1983 by John and Diane Howieson, founders of Veritas Winery from whom the vineyard was purchased in 1995. A 25 acre vineyard predominantly planted to Pinot noir, significant grafts of Dijon chardonnay and Pinot gris have been made at the vineyard, but not touching a 1.1 acre block of 16 year old Riesling nestled on a low bench above Corral Creek. Soils are Laurelwood, a predominantly sedimentary soil series that, although being low in elevation, is well drained.

The Vintage

Vintage 2000 was our third great vintage in-a-row, providing full ripeness and excellent weather throughout the growing season and through harvest. The average to one week early harvest, September 29-October 26, saw only 1.09 inches of rain. Fruit quantities were bountiful, permitting crop thinning to obtain ideal croploads of 2.50 tons/acre for Pinot gris, 2.55 for Chardonnay and 2.31 for Pinot noir. White wine characteristics are between 1998's round fleshiness and 1999's crisply structured ageability. Red wines benefit from less extreme extraction at Ridgecrest than the prior two vintages, thanks to normal croploads of 2.49 tons/acre and improved and excellent quality from the other vineyards. The overall quality in the Pinot noir cellar exceeds 1999 and is similar to 1998.

Stats

Harvest Data:

Harvested 10/26/00 @22.8 brix, 3.04 pH, and 8.2 g/L acid .

Fermentation:

Fermented with several yeasts (R2 & VL3) in small stainless vessels.

Cooperage/Aging:

Tank fermented.

Clonal Selection:

Bottling:

Cold stabilized, filtered and bottled 5/11/2001.

Bottling Analyses:

13.8 % alcohol, 8.8 g/L acid., 2.96 pH, 0.71% residual sugar.

Cases Produced:

155

Suggested Retail:

$19

Release Date:

August, 2001

Winemaker's Comments

We make riesling because we love it. It is a noble variety for good reason. A cool climate variety, it is possibly the best white wine at capturing site distinctions and passing them on in a crisp, long-lived, full-fruited wine. Almost a cult wine, we expect amazing intensity of white fruit and minerality, pointed acidity softened slightly by threshold residual sugar, and a complexity borne of low yields, multiple yeasts and cool fermentations. A perfect food wine in our opinion, both today and 15 years from now.

Quotes

The Wine Advocate, August, 2001: 88 points. has intense sweet tea herbal aromas. On the palate, this rich, plump, medium bodied wine has lovely depth to its boisterous white fruit, mineral and tea-like flavors. It is highly expressive, well-balanced, and simply put, a delight.