Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir La Bauge

The fruit is from two wonderful vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley AVA, with the majority from the hillsides of Bien Nacido Vineyard backed by our estate Le Bon Climat Vineyard. As with all our Pinot Noirs, we are “hands-on”. The grapes were fermented in 5 ton open-top fermenters and punched down once or twice a day. These punch downs breakup the cap of skins that rises to the surface and incorparates it back into the juice so that the fermentation process extracts the best part of the Pinot grapes. The wine is pressed to complete dryness, goes to barrel with moderate lees, and is aged in 50% new François Frères French oak barrels. In the spring, the wine was carefully racked and then aged another 20 months (24 months total). It was lightly fined then bottled unfiltered.