2021 Enz Vineyard Red Wine

64% Mourvèdre | 27% Cabernet Pfeffer | 9% Zinfandel

The grapes for this blend come from the Enz Vineyard in the Lime Kiln Valley AVA, which is on the northeastern edge of the Gavalan Mountain Range. The grapes are organically grown and dry farmed. The Cabernet Pfeffer was planted in 1895, the Mourvèdre in 1923 and the Zinfandel in the early 1980’s.

Enz Vineyard is one of the great historic sites on the Central Coast with plantings dating back to 1895. When fruit from this vineyard became available to us, we jumped at the chance to bring into the winery and inevitable add it to our growing repertoire of fine wines. This vineyard is in a little-known part of California, in a tucked away spot within the Cienega Valley AVA near Hollister. The Lime Kiln Valley is known for its unique sandy, gravelly loam soils over a base of dolomite and limestone and planted there are heritage grapes such as Zinfandel along with a rare varieties like old vine Mourvèdre and Cabernet Pfeffer, also known as Mourtaou.

The 2021 vintage was marked by drought conditions with a very small crop of small berries with yields off 20% to 30%. Rainfall was about half of average, although the dry farmed vines looked incredibly healthy at 100 years old. Thankfully the weather was relatively mild.

When you decide to open and imbibe, notice aromas of black plum, red licorice, earth, and allspice. The palate offers boysenberry, lingonberry, and marionberry – a true medley of wild berries. The sip is filled with black cherry and cocoa powder, leading you to a savory saline mineral finish that can only be derived from wines cultivated in limestone-rich soil.

All of the fruit in this blend was hand-picked and each block was fermented separately. We separated the Mourvèdre into two lots, one was completely destemmed and the other was fermented 20% whole cluster. There were no additions to the fruit when received and added to tanks. We do not perform cold soaks and all lots were spontaneous fermentation with their native yeasts in open-top fermenters. We employ minimal extraction in the cellar with only one very light punchdown per day. We drained and pressed at dryness and aged in neutral 228L, 500 and 600L French and Austrian oak barrels, about 20% of which are new. We kept the press wine separate and it was not added back to the blend. We racked with light lees and blended the wine in the summer of 2022 and decided to give the wine another year of barrel age. One month before bottling we racked the wine clean followed by a couple more weeks in the barrel. One week before bottling, the wine was racked clean to a new tank. We bottled without fining or filtration. Total barrel time was 22 months.

Production: 530 cases | ABV: 13.97% | TA: 5.99 g/L | pH: 3.52 | VA: 0.79 g/L | DCO2: TBD ppm | Total SO2: 64ppm | RS: 1.03 g/L | Turbidity at bottling: TBD NTU

Download a technical data sheet here.

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