2005 Iseult Hudson Vineyards
We harvested this fruit so late in the year that there were no laborers to pick it. We followed the passionate instigation of Tegan again and separated the fruit into two different fermentations: one, 100% whole cluster; the other, about 30% whole cluster plunged in typically crushed and destemmed fruit.
We began the convention of performing full-body punchdowns, fully immersed in the whole clusters, on syrah fermentations. We bled the crushed fruit pretty severely, but not the whole cluster. Everything got punched down 3-4 times per day. We found that the whole cluster wine developed much more interesting flavors and aromas than we were used to, and that it developped much more quickly in general. Nearly two years later, after the usual regime of no sulfur and no topping, we made a striking blending decision: we kept all of the whole cluster wine and banished all of the destemmed wine into a second wine. From this point on, we began 100% whole cluster fermentations on the Hudson syrah.
42 cases produced.