The Goal: Full-bodied, fruitful California hillside Cabernet Sauvignon.
The Vineyards:
Steep and Rocky
Petroni Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon is an estate grown wines but from a
very unusual vineyard made up of 13 blocks of vines on various slopes,
aspects and elevations. There are 5 clones planted and we are just in the
earliest stages of really developing our knowledge of the vineyard’s
potential as to how it was planted.
Vintage: 2005 A Cliffhanger
2005 was an excellent vintage, characterized by a soggy winter, a warm
summer (not hot) and lots of nail-biting in the fall as we watched the
skies. But the rain held off and we got the needed heat to make it an ideal
harvest, with slow, steady ripening that for optimal picking at just the
right numbers and flavors we desired. The fruit was picked mid- November
into champagne lugs and delivered to the de-stemmer by hand. Two separate
lots come from blocks that have a two hundred foot difference of elevation,
with the bottom block at 750’.
In the Cellar:
New techniques
Destemmed to four ton closed fermenters, the berries were cold
soaked for five days (with pumpovers) and allowed to warm on their own until
the onset of a native fermentation. Maceration period lasted six weeks and
included the near completion of a native malolactic fermentation. The wine
gets its silky mouth-feel from being barrel-aged in new French oak for 18
months. Racked three times for clarification, the wine was bottled
unfiltered.
The Wine: Balanced and Silky
The wine itself is ruby red, presenting a layered bouquet of red
bell pepper, chocolate and crushed black cherries with underlying subtle oak
nuances. The wine is somewhat brooding at present with the fruit needing
time to open with aeration. Despite some of its reticence, the 2005 Cabernet
has a finish that is both rich and elegant. As it doesn’t seem very evolved,
we can expect this wine to develop for many years to come.
2005
Cabernet Sauvignon
Variety: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation: Sonoma Valley, Estate grown
Harvest: November 2005
Fermentation: 100% native yeast and malolactic bacteria
Aging: Eighteen months in new French Oak
Production: 450 cases
Alcohol: 14.5%
