This year presented us with an opportunity to push ourselves to craft a new wine to showcase the uniqueness of the vintage. Within both our Rhone and Pinot programs we are known for producing both vineyard-designated and blended wines, such as our southern-Rhone inspired “Maniacal” GSM. So it seemed only right that we put together a northern-Rhone inspired blend that leverages many of our cooler-climate syrah vineyards. We have, and we’re excited to release the first vintage of “Indocile”. Sourcing Syrah from some of our favorite vineyards (Coastview, Mesa del Sol, and Escolle), this wine is brimming with a mixture of cool and warm climate characteristics - dark fruits, herbs de Provence, lavender, and cigar to name a few. At the same time, it is also incredibly silky and sensual on the palate; we can’t get enough of it.
The grapes were hand-harvested at optimal ripeness. They were then hand-sorted and destemmed. We cold-soaked the grapes for 5 days to extract color, and then fermentation kicked off spontaneously. Daily pump-overs and punch-downs were performed for cap management. When the fermentation was dry, the grapes were pressed and put into 50% new French oak barrels plus 50% neutral barrels (a mix of 228L barriques and 500L puncheons) to age. The wine was racked 5 months after harvest and then returned to barrel for another 15 months. We bottled this wine in August of 2023, unfined and unfiltered.
