Analysis:
Alcohol: 14.0 % | PH: 4.03 | Titratable acidity: 5.0 g/L
Bottling Date: July 2007
Tasting Notes:
This wine displays lifted aromas of ripe cherries, and a complex mixture of vanilla, toast, spice, and leathery notes. On the palate, the wine has a vibrant expression of ripe cherries and strawberries followed by forest berry flavors. It has beautiful balance and a lovely, smooth mouth-feel with soft approachable tannins. This wine personifies elegance and finesse.
Wine Making:
The 2006 vintage was remarkable in that it had a very high crop load across all varieties. The Burrowing Owl Pinot Noir came in at 4.36 tons per acre, which was similar to most of our reds for that season.
The fruit was harvested in late September, de-stemmed and crushed into closed top stainless steel tanks and inoculated with a preferred yeast strain.. The must was inoculated with a selection of preferred yeast strains and fermented, allowing temperatures to go as high as 28C before the cooling commenced. After 10-12 days on skins, the wine had gone dry and it was pressed and racked into barrels until the completion of MLF. It was then racked once more and was returned to barrels where it stayed until July, 2007. The oak program consisted of 18% new American oak barrels (medium plus toast) and the rest of the barrels were a mixture of 1-5 year old French and American oak. 5% Merlot pressings were added to the wine to enhance the structure and to impart a vibrancy to the palate. The wine was given a very light polish filtration and was bottled on July 16-18, 2007.