2005 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir

The Cuvee
As a winegrower, I am interested primarily in growing the best possible fruit I can to achieve world-class wines. To that end, Arcadian is highly selective in the barrels that make the final cut for our vineyard-designated wines. We are also concerned that the high cost of farming to small yields is matched by the high quality of the wines we release. This way of thinking has provided us with an opportunity to create a village wine that is offered at a price that will appeal to many. This third release of Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir, selected from two of our premier cru vineyards, is the result of this strict approval of barrels into the vineyard-designated program. The cuvee is comprised of 28 barrels from Sleepy Hollow Vineyard and 3.5 barrels of Silacci Vineyard and one barrel of Pisoni.

The Harvest
Vintage 2005 is, without a doubt, my favorite vintage to date for Arcadian. Harvest began on October 2 for Sleepy Hollow and October 3 for Silacci Vineyard. Sleepy Hollow produced delightful fruit while Silacci faced the difficult challenge of the constant wind. Yields were right where we like them at 35 hectoliters per hectare, which, for a village wine is extremely low.

In 2005, we experienced one of the wettest years seen in quite some time. Typically we average about 14 inches of rain annually. In 2005, we averaged more than 35 inches for the year. All this rain came at the right time, during the dormancy period of the vines. And it essentially washed away the salts built up around the vine’s root zone that had been clogging up the nutrient pathways to the plant. By clearing these away, the vines were extremely efficient at metabolizing what they needed to provide deliciously ripe fruit at lower levels of sugar.

The Production
Our lower South Block of Sleepy Hollow produced fruit with very little color intensity this year and though color is less an issue than for many, we chose these barrels for this cuvee. The flavors remained delicious and harmonious and we liked the spiciness of this block. It contributes an extremely silky texture and compelling flavor profile. It seemed to lack the grandeur required to be premier cru and proved to be an excellent candidate for this Santa Lucia Highlands blend.
The Silacci Vineyard is actually located outside of the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA just to the north of Mer Soleil by a couple of miles. Others such as Tantara and Alcina have had good success with this vineyard, and when we were offered the opportunity to work with this site, we took advantage and harvested 1.15 tons from two different clones (667 & 777). While we like the potential of this vineyard, we think it is still too young to merit a single-vineyard designation. Nonetheless, the half barrel of clone 777 was just marvelous and worthy of a separate bottling while the 667 exhibited many of the pyrazines that can remain with cold windy climate. Ultimately, they contributed some grip to the velvety texture that Sleepy Hollow contributes.
I think you will find this an enjoyable wine to have with lighter fare foods. Despite its lack of color intensity, it delivers a tremendous amount of flavor intensity and is worthy of your cellar as it continues to shed its baby fat and grow in complexity.

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