2021 Calera Clone Pinot Noir
Tasting Notes
We all like getting gifts. Birthdays, Christmas, whatever. Big or small, it’s nice to know that someone in our lives knows we’re amazing and that we deserve some special treatment. The team at Bouchaine has taken it a step further with the Calera Clone Pinot Noir, because this beauty is like a gift wrapped inside another gift wrapped inside another gift. We want you to feel special over and over, and the layers of flavors and aromas in this wine just keep giving and giving. It may not be your birthday, anniversary, or a holiday, but we want you to enjoy this. For a one of a kind like you, it’s a one of a kind wine.
Description
Bouchaine’s 100-acre estate vineyard lies on the southern border of Napa Valley’s Carneros district, overlooking the San Francisco bay with the financial district in the distance. Fog, wind, and the cold nightime temperatures of this unique geographical area lend a distinctive regional identity to our Pinot Noir.
Growing Season
The 2021 growing season will be remembered as a winemaker’s vintage. Not too cold, not too hot, not too wet, and no frost. However, we were in the grips of a multiyear drought. While we enjoy dry farming when we have average rainfall, in vintages where the rainfall is half of average (like 2021) we do irrigate to allow for ideal shoot growth and ripening. Bouchaine is lucky to have a huge reservoir so we were able to irrigate early in the season to get our vine canopies full. Drought conditions do have some positives when it comes to winemaking as they bring us smaller berries with beautifully concentrated flavors at harvest. We also lucked out with consistent weather throughout the summer giving us ideal ripening at an even pace. A little sun, a bit of water, and a lot of hard work in the vineyard allowed us to bring in a killer 2021 vintage!
Vinification
All fruit is hand-harvested at night, preserving berry integrity. After a 7-day cold soak, fruit is fermented with native yeast in open top tanks. The wine is then drawn off and the must is placed into a basket press for gentle pressing. All wines complete malolactic fermentation in French oak barrels. We take a hands off approach to this single vineyard block of Calera, keeping it on primary lees right up until bottling for added nuance and depth.
Tech Sheet
