'07 Port

Upon corking, it opens with heady aromatics of blackberry, cassis and licorice. As it breaths the dark jamy fruit is framed with spicy oak and vanilla accents. After substansual airing it finishes with notes of strong dark chocolate with hints of pecan, tangerine peel and earth. This wine has a big silky mouth feel, full of soft chewy tannins and a sweet vanilla oak backdrop. Fruit flavors of blackberry combine with wild berry and cassis to form a long mid palate, ending with a luscious licorice finish. This wine is perfectly balanced and will drink well, but it will improve with two to ten years additional cellaring and will age another ten years after that.

This Port is designed to show what old world wine making techniques, vineyard terrior and the use of the Syrah grape can do to create a work of art. Harvested at daybreak ensuring cold sound fruit, then de-stemmed to a 4 ton open top fermenter, cold soaked for 72 hours at 45*F and then punched down gently by hand during a short cool fermentation process (allowing it to ferment only 1.5*Brix per day until the Must reaches 16* Brix before stopping the fermentation by the addition of neutral grape spirits). After the fortification, the wine was allowed to rest 24 hours on the skins before gently pressing using a small basket press. After pressing the wine is settled for 72 hours, then racked to 3 year old heavy toasted American Oak barrels that have been selected to showcase the wine’s natural fruit flavors and added nuances of spice, smoke and vanilla components.

375ml bottle/Cases Produced: 430