Truffle Pig Wine

Combined, we’re making around 20 barrels, so we were there all day and well into the evening.

Here are my notes on our 2005 Las Madres Syrah and 2005 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir:

2005 Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, Fairview Road Ranch

Eno is making 7 barrels of this wine in total, one of which will be siphoned off at bottling time and labeled as Truffle Pig. We’re using all French Oak, about 30% of which is new. Barrels, if I remember correctly, are a Francois Frere, two Ramonds, a Vernou, a few more misc. neutrals.

The wine is lighter in colour than expected, which is most-likely due to a more conservative use of enzymes during fermentation. On the nose I got primarily fresh fruit – raspberry and strawberry Jolly Rancher, which is typical of pure SHL fruit. Taste is lighter than the Eno ’04, though maintains a nice full mouthfeel and smooth finish with good acidity.

2005 Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley, Ray Teldeschi Vineyard.

Eno ordered a light-ton of Teldeschi’s 120 year-old zinfandel fruit and I was able to piggy-back a few hundred pounds of fruit more – enough for six cases or so. Like the SLH Pinot, we co-fermented it all during harvest and it’s now aging together in three French barrels: a new Heinrich, and two misc. neutrals.

The colour is a brilliant ruby/garnet colour, already crystals clear. The nose is showing all fresh red fruit (no pit-fruit, or anything dark) with lots of red current. On the palate, the wine has medium-to-light extraction: it’s very floral, pretty, graceful and feminine. This is definitely the lighter side of Zin.

2005 Syrah, Carneros, Las Madres

Sasha wasn’t sure he’d get any of this fruit this year. As I understand the story, the vineyard reduced the number of wineries sourcing fruit from around 7 to 3, so by last Spring, Sasha thought he’d be cut out of the loop for the ’05 harvest. But his ’04 was tasting SO good, he drove up over the summer to meet the growers and give them a bottle. They agreed it was suberb and agreed to free up a ton or so for this year.

Little did anyone know that ’05 would be a banner year and almost every vineyard in the region was bursting with fruit come harvest. Sasha was ultimately able to secure over 4 tons of fruit, about half a barrel of which will make its way into my collection with a Truffle Pig label.

With so much to do, my taste buds were pretty burned out by the time I got to topping up the Syrah, so I didn’t even taste it. I’ll have to give an update less month, when I’m the winery next time I’m in town.

2004 Syrah, Santa Lucia Highlands, Fairview Road Ranch

Sasha and I co-fermented our SLH Syrah last year, and then aged them separately. He aged his in two barrels while I used a 15-gallon keg in my hallway. I blended with 5% Viognier and bottled back in December, while his is still in barrel, so I tasted his for comparison.

And what a difference! While mine is all big-nosed with no mouthfeel, his is much more balanced; the nose of mine is thick and dark (bacon, molasses and creme brule) while his maintains much more pure light SLH fruit. Both are lacking in mid-palate, but they have a nice crisp finish.