2005 Santa Rita Hills 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 second release of the Santa Rita Hills, selected from two of our grand cru vineyards, is the result of this strict approval of barrels into the vineyard-designated program. The cuvee is comprised of 15 barrels from Fiddlestix Vineyard and one barrel of Clos Pepe Vineyard Pinot Noir.

The Harvest
Vintage 2005 is, without a doubt, my favorite vintage to date for Arcadian. Harvest began on September 4 for Fiddlestix and September 20 for Clos Pepe. Both sites produced delightful fruit. In fact, any one of the barrels selected for this cuvee could have been part of final composition for the single-vineyard designates. I had more difficulty selecting out the barrels for this cuvee, they were all so good.

Yields were right where we like them at 35 hectoliters per hectare, which, for a village-style wine is extremely low. We did see some mildew in Fiddlestix late into the season and sorted it out on the table, especially from the very western section of the vineyard in our block two clone 777, which comprised much of this cuvee. We also had to contend with bird damage, as we do every year in the eastern most portion of the vineyard in our block 1 clone 667. These pressures sometimes dictate our barrel selection for this cuvee.

With the addition of Clos Pepe Vineyard to our program, we had access to one acre and produced a total of five barrels, one of which was chosen for this cuvee.

The Production
The grapes undergo a tremendous amount of triage (sorting) both in the vineyard and in the cellar. I consider this to be one of the most significant practices we employ. We can truly say only the best grapes go into our fermenters. Once they are received into the cellar, they undergo another sorting on the table and then go into the fermenters. This whole cluster fermentation technique contributes significantly to the aromatics and texture of our wines. It is the gentlest manipulation of Pinot Noir grapes possible. Once in the fermenters, we cover the cap in dry ice to arrest any spontaneous fermentation that may occur. We prefer a pre-fermentation maceration (cold-soaking) allowing optimum color and flavor extraction in the absence of fermentation for two or three days. During this time we pigeage (foot tread) twice a day increasing to five times a day at peak fermentation. The wine is usually pressed of at 1 or 2° Brix into Sirugue barrels from the Allier forest in the center of France. The wine remains in barrel for 22 months without racking and will be bottled without fining or filtration. This wine received an additional 10 months of bottle ageing before release.

Technical Data
3.46 ph		376 - six packs
6.2 g/l
13.6 % alcohol
.32 ppm dissolved oxygen
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