For over a year now I have been on the fence about starting a blog about my life as a winemaker. In the past I have felt many inspirations to do so, but never acted on them. We all get busy, and it is easy to pass on something that is not already a part of our routine. It takes something very special to break that routine. That special something happened today, and it is only 9:00 AM.
Today I started racking my 2010 Vintage wines. I got in early to get going, because my program is very complex. I have 126 Barrels to rack, which will probably take the better part of two weeks. The complexity is what this blog is about today.
Many of you who have come in to the winery while I am here (which is about 99% of my life - not a bad thing) have heard me talk highly of the 2010 vintage in general. The state of California seems pretty skeptical because of the extremely mild weather which brought a really late pick in most vineyards, and in a lot of cases fruit left hanging that never got ripe. Let me assure you that NC 2010 vintage will deliver some seriously complex Cabernet Sauvignon. Let me tell you why:
Starting with the 09 vintage, I will be releasing a Vineyard Designate Cabernet Series, as well as my standard Livermore Valley, and Livermore Valley Reserve Cabs. The VDCS will be an extremely small production from Casa De Vinas, Del Arroyo Vineyard, and Wisner Vineyard. 2009 is showing amazing, as it should. It was a healthy growing season, we had outstanding fermentations with little or no issues, we used several different coopers to increase complexity, and we sourced fruit from all the right places.
So why is 2010 different? Well, I can't speak for the state of California, or even the Livermore Valley, but in the case of Nottingham Cellars, we took that level of complexity up a notch. We kept the three vineyards noted above, and tacked on Ghielmetti Clone 4 Cabernet. For Casa De Vinas, our largest volume of production, we split the ten tons into 4 different lots and fermented each using different yeast strains. These 5 lots are the source of my happiness today. Every single lot is completely different from the other in terms of flavor, body, tannin level, color, mouth feel, etc, and these wines are babies. Less than 6 months old. The variance in flavor profile will only grow from here.
With the other 3 vineyards I worked with (a total of 4 more lots) we are seeing tremendous variance in flavor based purely on complex barrel programs. THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
All in all, we have 9 lots of Cabernet Sauvignon from v2010 which are broken down by Vineyard and Yeast Strain. Factor in our different barrel programs within those given lots, and we are looking at a total of 36 different "versions" of Livermore Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. All are tremendously unique flavorful delicious wines - even in their youth.
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