Collins Vineyard, located two miles north of the town of Windsor, was planted in 1934 and produces rich, intense, complex wine. It was originally part of Limerick Lane Cellars, surrounding the home of winemaker Michael Collins. We are very fortunate to work with this old-vine, heritage Zinfandel.
Charlatan is the very finest Pinot Noir we make. In fact, only three barrels were ultimately selected for the 2013 Charlatan, and just 69 cases were bottled.
Michael Scorsone has been a long-time friend and an honorary member of our family. Through our relationship with Michael we are able to source superb Dry Creek Valley fruit from the Emmitt-Scorsone Estate, located two miles west of the town of Healdsburg. The grapes produce a lovely, soft, medium-bodied wine full of red fruit and spice.
Wonderfully rich and complex, with layers of pear, apple, citrus and melon flavors that are long and intense on the finish.
This wine was made using native yeasts and malolactic bacteria. The fermentation was long and slow with the two lots finishing the secondary fermentation in April of 2017. The blended wine was dry, stable and bottled without fining or filtration.
This wine is made from grapes grown at John Balletto's Occidental Road Vineyard, located about a mile north-east of the town of Sebastopol. The vineyard's location, in the southern-most third of the Russian River Valley where the weather is much cooler than areas to the north, provides an extended period of ripening for Chardonnay.
The initial nose is full and fruit driven, offering up ripe notes of rich red cherry, wild strawberry and toasted oak. On the palate, the wine is big and fills the mouth, dominated by ripe Bing cherries accentuated with notes of cola and vanilla. As the wine opens, it begins to show added complexity, offering up nuances of rose petals, mushroom and forest floor. The finish is long with lingering candied cherry and cola, giving way to a refined, well integrated tannic structure and mouth-watering end.
Charlatan is the very finest Pinot Noir we make. In 2012, it represented less than five percent of our total production, and was crafted as a selection of our best barrels of Pinot Noir.
