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2005 Bismark Mountain Syrah
Midnight purple in color with a gorgeous nose of blueberry, applewood bacon and white pepper. Polished and mouth-filling, with flavors of mocha, hazelnut and blackberries.
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Sourced from Hanna’s Bismark Mountain, located in the Mayacamas Mountains high above the city of Sonoma and the San Pablo Bay. Three blocks are planted to Syrah. Block 22 sits at the vineyards highest point near 2500 feet, while block 12 is in a more protected ravine just below. Our newest Syrah, block 14, was grafted to the highly touted clone 174 in 2002. Together they comprise 4.5 acres. Blocks 22 and 12 were planted in 1993 to clone 1 grafted to 110R rootstock, on a vertical trellis with 9 by 4 spacing. Bismark’s high elevation gives us growing conditions that have features of both warm and cool climate - intense sun, yet low air temperatures. The quality of the grapes reflects this rare terroir.
The vintage was a challenging one. Abundant spring rains resulted in luxuriant growth requiring extra passes for canopy management. Windy weather during bloom moderated fruit set at Bismark. A moderate summer punctuated by a few hot days resulted in much later harvest than 2004.
The very ripe 2005 vintage had firm tannins that required much less extraction than 2004. We reduced our pump over regimen and reduced the fermentation time on skins, while maintaing our normal cold maceration of 8-10 days. We used a commercial yeast, Syrah, and fermented below 80 degrees F. Aging was 41 months with multiple rackings in Burgundy barrels from Remond, Mercury, Budapasti Kadar and Seguin Moreau coopers. The wine was filtered lightly before bottling on July 30, 2009.
Midnight purple in color with a gorgeous nose of blueberry, applewood bacon and white pepper. Polished and mouth-filling, with flavors of mocha, hazelnut and blackberries.
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