Tasting Notes

Dark red. Begins with deep, dark fruit of blackberries, red fruits, black currants, and tobacco. Exudes beautiful, dense, blackberry aromas that echo through the mid-palate. A rich mouthfeel of silky-woven tannins and perfectly balanced acid. This wine shows the character of the land at Garden Creek and what we would consider a classic wine of ripe dark fruit combined with crisp acidity, and round, velvety soft tannins. A long lingering finish.

Vintage

The 2007 growing season began with a mild, dry winter. Bud break arrived early, setting a perfect crop with small clusters of highly concentrated berries. Summer had ideal weather with warm, consistent temperatures through veraison. The end of summer brought several heat spikes followed by moderate temperatures that prevailed through harvest. Fruit had a long period of time for phenolics as well as sugars to reach optimum levels. The result was a slow, steady harvest of exceptional quality, with wines showing great intensity and structure.

Harvest began early October hand-harvested and hand-selected over a 10-day stretch. Initial cold soaks lasted 8-10 days then heating tanks for a slow natural fermentation. Duration of fermentations went II days on average. Punch downs 2-4 times a day depending on the taste during the fermenta­tions. Each lot (clones & varietal) of individually fermented and barreled down. Our Tesserae is introduced at the first racking - barrel by barrel. 20 months of elevage, with 3 rackings in the life of the barrel.