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2002 Windsor Gardens Pinot Noir |
 The
Martinelli vineyard has been growing outstanding Russian River
Valley wine grapes since 1896, and some of their best fruit has
gone into Rutz Cellars wines since our inception in 1991. The
Windsor Gardens vineyard on the Martinelli estates was one of
our favorites, consistently producing some of our best
single-vineyard pinot noirs, and enhancing all of our blends.
Unfortunately, in the name of progress, the vineyard was pulled
up after the 2003 harvest. The 2002 vintage from the Windsor
Gardens vineyrard is a distinctive Pinot Noir with rich flavors
and concentration. Grapes from this highly coveted vineyard were
hand picked, hand sorted, destemmed, and moved to small open top
fermentors. Each lot received a minimum four day cold soak,
during which the clusters were punched down four times per day.
After the onset of fermentation, hand punch-downs were continued
through a five day maceration period. Upon completing
fermentation, the lots were moved to French oak barrels and aged
for nine months in the controlled environment of the Rutz
Cellars cave. Rutz Cellars uses only French oak barrels from
five distinguished wine coopers: Louis Latour, Francois Frere,
Claude Gillet, Seguin Moreau and Marchive. The wine was racked
twice, is unfined, and went through a very light filtration at
bottling.
Ruby red in appearance. Intense ripe cherry, spice and cigar aromas. Shows a wonderful synthesis of black cherry, juicy red plum, earth and leather on the palate. It has a nice tannic grip in mid-palate which smooths out into the medium finish. Harvest Dates - September 22-23 pH - 3.45 Alcohol - 13.9% TA - .663g/100ml 160 cases produced - Sold only in 6-pack boxes. |