2010 La Severità di Bruto Farina Vineyard
LSB is in some sense our most serious wine and, if one asks solely about how we make it, our most conventional. The Farina vineyard is a beautiful hillside vineyard on the east-facing slope of Sonoma Mountain. The LSB comes from the highest (at about 1,000 feet) and most well-drained section of the vineyard; it is one of our very rockiest sites. In 2010, we harvested about half as much fruit as usual. We whole-cluster-pressed all of it, gently; fermented and aged it in two 70-gallon stainless steel barrels. We use SO2 liberally, but not wildly, to suppress malolactic fermentation and preserve freshness. We bottle the wine after a year; while it is still piercing and direct, not oxidized at all nor affected by post-fermentation microbes.
Yet the wine is extreme, and in some ways, unrecognizable—at least as California Sauvignon Blanc.