2006 Sleepy Hollow Vineyard Pinot Noir

The two thousand six vintage was a very good vintage unfortunately it is dwarfed by the incredible 2005 vintage and the equally grand 2007. "The long growing season resulted in great flavors. The berries and bunches sized better than we anticipated with clusters more consistently uniform in spite of the early cold spring that was difficult through bloom time.  The July heat spell was unusual, but tolerable in Monterey it did however cause some dehydration and raisining. Rainfall during the period of January thru April brought 11.58 inches hardly enough but seemingly average.
The effects of the weather were exhibited by a later than normal harvest which began on October 18th about 16 days later than the 2005 vintage.  Yields were reduced by triage to 30 hectoliters per hectare and sugars soaked up to 14.75% potential alcohol as a result of the dehydration.  

The Vineyard
Sleepy Hollow Vineyard is situated along the Santa Lucia bench in the northwestern section of the Salinas Valley of Monterey County.  Planted to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in 1974, it was independently owned until 1990 when Robert Talbott purchased the property for his Talbott Winery.

The vineyard is broken up into two major parcels: A and B.  Within Parcel A, we farm 10 acres in Set 1 South, which is located at the top of the gently sloping vineyard.  We select blocks located high on the slopes to ensure good drainage and intensity of flavors in the grapes.  Soils consist of sandy loam and Monterey shale making for excellent drainage.  The vines are on their own roots and are a combination of Martini and an upright clone the French call “Pinot Droid.â€?  Spacing is set at 6 x 10 with a split canopy trellis designed to acclimate the clusters to the sun early in the year, thus avoiding sunburn later in the summer.  This trellis design also helps to ripen the fruit more evenly.  Pruning is conducted in the winter with only 2 spurs per cordon kept.  And in the spring, we prune to 2 clusters per cane.

The Production
Only the best Pinot Noir grape clusters are handpicked in the vineyard in the early morning hours when the fruit is still cool.  Pinot Noir has a tendency to ferment very quickly thus preventing the wine full color and flavor extraction. To arrest the on-set of immediate fermentation, dry ice is added to the small open top fermenting vats.  This “cold soakâ€? (at 45 ËšF) slows fermentation while saturating the juice with rich fruit flavor and true Pinot Noir color from prolonged contact with the grape skins.  Concomitant with the primary fermentation is malolactic fermentation (malic acid to lactic acid), which reduces the total acid and imparts softness to the wine. The grapes are pigeaged (foot treaded) 3 to 5 times daily to extract color and tannins.  We then press the wine at 1 – 2 % sugar and allow it to complete fermentation in barrel; this helps integrate the qualities of oak in the wine.  The wine was aged in 2 year old Sirugue 100% French oak barrels for 22 months and bottled unfined and unfiltered. The bottled wine was further aged 14 months to allow the integration of the wine to become more complete.