2014 Inspirado, Red Wine, 1.5L

This Bordeaux-style blend shows all the complexity that one would expect, ranging from dark juicy blueberry aromas to mocha, dried cherry, and faint hints of vanilla.  The aromas promise great things to come, and the palate impression delivers the same, opening with dark purple fruit tones wrapped in an expansive, velvety texture, then transitioning into darker and more savory notes but with the same rich, very polished tannins.  The combination of Cabernet clones as well as the other Bordeaux-based varieties in this blend lend to the wine a sense of completeness and of density from entry to finish.

In 2014, California entered its third year of drought.  Our vineyards experienced only a handful of small later-winter storms that happily gave our grapevines at least a sip of water with which to power our early season growth.   A relatively mild summer meant that our fruit was able to ripen slowly and completely, and the very dry soils created a harvest with overall smaller and slightly drier grapes.  This is evidenced in the intense color and concentrated flavor of our 2014 Inspirado.  Harvested between September 11 and October 13, the fruit was hand-harvested, sorted, destemmed and sorted again, then fermented on skins in small batches for about 24 days.  The new wines were then transferred to small French oak barrels (70% new) for 21 months of barrel age before bottling without the use of fining or filtration.  Only 440 cases were produced.