2011 Golgotha Reserve Hudson Vineyards
There is something going on the western edge of Hudson Vineyard’s Widowmaker block—the vines have access to less water, grow less foliage and have better drainage with more sun exposure. We made wine, somewhat by accident, from this section of the vineyard in 2010 and it was glorious. We called it Golgotha. In 2011, we harvested this fruit with the intention of making this wine. Again, we only made one barrel.
The wine is very similar to what it was in 2010—a powerful, tannic wine not marked by the lightness of the 2011 vintage as the Androkteinos is. We fermented the grapes 100 percent with whole clusters and allowed 45 days of maceration before draining into neutral oak. The wine was not topped and saw no So2 for 22 months. Intense, well structured, tannic, but not the least forbidding.