2006 QUPÉ SYRAH “BIEN NACIDO HILLSIDE ESTATE”

The 2006 vintage was a very cool one… cooler than normal during the summer, cooler than normal throughout September and then warming up gloriously, just in time, in October to ripen everything! I love the results we get in cool vintages. The wines are usually not as apparent upon release but usually are among our most age worthy… and this 2006 fits right in there. The grapes were harvested between October 24th and 31st at an average sugar of 24.1°, 3.32 pH and 7.9 acidity. The yield was 3.3 tons/acre which is pretty close to average. The finished alcohol is 13.9% (the label says 14.0%). With the long cool growing season and the vines now reaching a nice level of maturity (15 years old), I was able to use some whole clusters (25%) in the fermenter. The rest of the grapes were destemmed on
top. The grapes were cold soaked for 3 days with pump overs and then manually punched down for the duration of the fermentation. As we always do with our Hillside syrah, some saignée was drawn off around day 5 into new François Frères Burgundy barrels and barrel fermented. This technique adds a nice toasty mocha complexity to the final blend and ends up being about 10-15% of the final blend. The wine was then aged in barrel for about 20 months with about 60% being new François Frères. 1177 cases were bottled without fining or filtration in June of 2008. I love the cooler vintages. This definitely ranks among the top 5 syrahs that I’ve produced from this special Bien Nacido Hillside block. It has the classic black pepper you get in cool vintages along with raspberries, cola, Provençal herbs with that nice touch of sweet French oak. This wine is a baby upon release… to enjoy young please decant a couple hours before you drink it so it can open up. If you buy some for the cellar, I’d recommend waiting until it’s at least 8 years old and with the right storage this
wine will easily go 15-20 years.