2007 Qupé Roussanne Bien Nacido Hillside Estate

This wine is 100% roussanne from Bien Nacido Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley. Our roussanne block at Bien Nacido was planted exclusively for us as a “custom plantation” beginning in 1997. It is 5 acres on a west-facing hillside just opposite of where our winery sits, and was planted to the Tablas Creek clone which came originally from Chateau de Beaucastel. 2007 was an unusual vintage in many ways. It was a relatively cool vintage, the kind that generally yields our most interesting wines. We had very spotty weather though during flowering and set which caused a lotof shatter at Bien Nacido, especially in our syrah and chardonnay blocks. Roussanne, however, set a larger crop than normal at 2.9 tons/acre, where the usual yields are closer to 2.0 tons/acre…which in itself is odd because roussanne is usually the grape negatively affected by shatter. The cool vintage, combined with this larger than normal crop allowed the roussanne to ripen more slowly and develop more flavor at lower sugars…a phenomenon that we have not seen before or since! We harvested the roussanne in two separate lots: Lot 1 was picked on October 11 at 21.4 degrees brix,3.16 pH and 9.9 acidity (this lot was about 70% of the block); the balance, Lot 2, was harvested on October22 at 25.0 degrees brix, 3.17 pH and 8.6 acidity. Those of you who are numbers geeks have to be impressed by how much this roussanne holds its acidity! The grapes were whole cluster pressed into a tank and chilled over night. The juice was then transferred to barrels for fermentation and aging. For roussanne I always use once used Francois Fréres Burgundy barrels, barrels that were used once for chardonnay. The wine was aged for 12 months on the lees in the one year old barrels, then racked, fined and returned to neutral barrels for an additional 6 months. 616 cases were bottled without filtration in May 2009. I much preferred the lower alcohol, higher acid Lot 1 and that lot makes up about 85% of the final blend. I put a little bit of the Lot 2 in and added the balance of the Lot 2 to our 2007 Block Eleven Chardonnay (Chardonnay is still easier to sell than roussanne!). This wine is quite different than our previous vintages…leaner, focused with more nerve. The aromas show classic roussanne characters of hazelnut, peach pit, a slight floral note and great minerality. In the mouth this wine grabs you from the start with refreshing, mouth-watering acidity. This is a wine that needs food to show off and also needs some cellar time to show its best…a few years will help but I predict that this wine won’t even begin to show its best until about 10 years down the road! This may be our best roussanne yet, only time will tell.