2003 Étiquette Rose

An unexpected success, the 2003 Étiquette Rose or "pink label" represents yet another definition of late harvest California Syrah for Clos Mimi. This "vendange tardive blanc de noir" is not your typical abashed pink wine originating from the south of France. Thanks to my strong faith in the universe when it comes to timing and an unyielding confidence in old world winegrowing techniques, the 2003 harvest proved to be a very magical vintage for Clos Mimi. The witches' calendar for 2003 encouraged one to round up the last fruits of the season before Samhain, the Pagan equivalent of Halloween, and the arrival of the first rains. "Pour quelques mois" I had been tossing around the idea of producing a blush wine harvested at 30-35 degrees brix. Nevertheless, I was infatuated with the idea of incorporating a flint 750mL bottle into our dessert wine portfolio. Just as the witches had predicted, the first significant rain of the season in Paso Robles fell the morning of Halloween. On 28 October 2003 we were fortunate enough to hand harvest the last ton of Syrah from Rolling Hills Vineyard at 31.2 degrees Brix, 4.18 pH, and 4.3 grams per liter tartaric acid (2.8 grams per liter sulfuric acid). Six hours after supervising the picking crew and personally delivering the fruit in my Ford F350, I loaded the highly shriveled clusters into a small basket press. Respecting the labor intensive traditions of Champagne, I pressed the whole clusters without destemming or extended skin contact. The juice was transferred bucket by bucket via a funnel into a couple of seven year old Seguin Moreau 225L barrels---the oldest and most neutral in the cellar. As soon as the barrels were two-thirds full I added 10g/hL sulphur dioxide to discourage a spontaneous malolactic fermentation. The native yeasts began converting sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide five days after pressing. Talk about Feng Shui generating some love for the yeasts---two months later the wine had inexplicably fermented to dryness! 19.0% alcohol here. The barrels were topped every 7-10 days "sans batonnage" before being racked to a stainless bottling tank. In order to preserve the wild aromatics and viscous texture the wine was gravity hand bottled without fortification, cold stabilization, fining or filtration on the spring equinox* of 2004 (e.g. new moon 17h41).

* please note the wine was given an extra month in stainless to enhance natural clarification, hence the wine was bottled under the gravitational pull of the new moon in April 2004.