2018 Dunn Forest Pinot Noir
2018 DUNN FOREST PINOT NOIR
Tasting Notes:
This age worthy old vine pinot noir comes from our estate Dunn Forest Vineyard, planted in 1983 and 1991. Notes of cranberry, cherry and pepper balanced by medium tannins lead into a lingering finish with hints of sarsaparilla and spice. As always, an excellent food companion, we recommend lamb shanks with white beans or for a weeknight meal, ribeye on the grill.
Winemaking Notes:
The fruit was gently de-stemmed by a Euro Select into 1.5-ton fermenters leaving a remarkably high whole berry content. A two-day cold soak preceded inoculation done with a variety of yeasts designed to increase complexity and mouth-feel. Fermentations were punched down in the morning and pumped over in the evening for 12-14 days with temperatures peaking around 84°F. The wine was racked via gravity to settling tanks keeping each lot separate and was allowed to settle for two days before being racked to French oak barrels. The skins were shoveled into the press and pressed off to their own settling tank before racking. Keeping the free run and press wines separate gives us more flexibility come summer when we start blending. The wines were inoculated for malo-lactic and allowed to age for ten months. At the end of August 2016, the four selected reserve barrels were racked to neutral barrels for an additional year of aging. The wine was racked from barrel, blended in tank and bottled in September 2017.
Harvest Notes:
The 2018 growing season started as one of the warmest and driest on record raising concerns that we might have a repeat of our last few hot years but thankfully there were no major heat spikes through the later part of the summer and peak grape ripening season. The cool autumn allowed us to let fruit hang developing flavor complexity while still retaining acidity. Our harvest started on October 4th with the Maréchal Foch and finished October 22nd with the Muscat Ottonel.
Our estate vineyard, Dunn Forest, is LIVE Certified Sustainable and Salmon Safe. The vineyard is hand cultivated allowing us to respond to individual vine needs.
A printout of this and the technical data is available under the 'Wine Information' tab above, 'Download Wine Notes'.
