HARVESTED: September 9 – October 16, 2013
VINEYARD LOCATION: Woodside, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, La Honda
SOILS: ranging from deep clay to sandy loam
BOTTLED: August, 2014
COMPOSITION: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 10% Syrah, 10% Sangiovese
ALCOHOL: 13.2%
PRODUCTION: 281 cases
WINEMAKER: Colin McNany
NAME: The wine is an ‘exponent’ of varietals’ potential, and part of Silicon Valley’s vines/science heritage.
VINTAGE NOTES
A warm, dry spring brought early bud break, helped with canopy vigor and berry size and created ideal conditions for flowering and fruit set. Temperatures were consistently in the zone for optimal vine activity, resulting in notably healthy vines through veraison and ripening. The August 1 start of harvest in Napa was the earliest in recent history, however, Santa Cruz was roughly 2 weeks behind, which put us slightly earlier than schedule, dependent on site. A little extra hang time gave us thicker skins for deeper flavours.
WINEMAKING NOTES
Exponent is a cuvee from a variety of local vineyards, each harvested at optimum ripeness, brought in over the course of harvest, and fermented in small isolated bins. Each lot is destemmed, 100% whole berry, hand sorted, and cold soaked for 35 days. Post cold soak, we foot tread the fruit on preparation for inoculation. Punchdowns occur 3 times daily, where fruit will be pressed off skins anywhere from 1025 days. Merlot typically is pressed with 4 brix remaining to preserve the fresh fruit aspect. All vineyards are then isolated to individual barrels, undergo 100% native malolactic fermentation, and aged for 11 months in a combination of American and French oak, with roughly ⅓ new American oak. Individual vineyard barrels are hand selected, racked once to tank, pushed through a rough polishing filter, and gravity fed to bottle.
TASTING NOTES
Quite savory on approach, this purple hued wine brings elements of black cherry, black currants and charred madrone wood. The palette drives forth with tight grain peppercorn tannin and firm acidity, making this an ideal match for most styles of cuisine.
CELLARING
Delicious now, but has the ability to age up to 10 years.