Winemaker's Notes
While folks say our Old & Mature is a Pinot maker’s Zin, I think the Shale Terrace is merely the Zin that truly identifies as Pinot Noir (only in California 😉). What I mean by that is, I don’t believe these grapes could ever become a massive, dark-fruited milkshake of a wine even if we let it hang an extra month in an attempt to achieve that style. The material just doesn’t go there. It’s located next to the barn in a soil of fractured shale with very little clay, unlike the rest of the vineyard which is a moderately acidic gravelly clay loam. Because I’m on-site pretty much every day now, splitting my time between winery and vineyard and trapping gophers, I’m rooting around in soil not completely planted to vines. I’ve noticed that an area uphill of the shale terrace on some fallow land has what appears to be some kind of calcareous stones on the surface with even more being pushed up by the dwindling population of gophers. It’s an unusual occurrence in our area (the calcareous parts, not the gophers) and an amazing contrast in soils over a very short distance. It’s very close to one of the old springs that were developed when the house was built in 1853 whose water has very high mineral content to the point of nearly plugging the old pipes underground after only 100 years of use. This is something to explore in the future as I wonder if there is some of that material deep underground that the Shale Terrace vines’ roots have penetrated that could explain its uniqueness.
Total stone fruit signature leaps to the forefront on the initial aromas, then it shows some rose hip and pink grapefruit as well. There’s a bit of mysterious, savory non-fruit element that is difficult to nail down. With air there is more of a plum flesh sweetness on the nose. In the mouth, there is a reserved entry that begins to shed slightly toasted grains and stone fruit as it glides through the mouth. Clearly elegant and refined, this is a wholly unique expression of Zinfandel from a small part of our family’s property. We have learned to hold back just enough of this to be able to offer some in our sampler packs this time (while supply lasts).
