Tasting Notes
Vineyard: Gaddis vineyard is located behind the Gaddis Nursery on Piner Road in the Russian River Valley appellation. The vineyard was planted in the early 1920s. It is predominately Zinfandel, along with some Alicante and Petite Sirah grapevines planted among the Zin vines.
The grapes were harvested very late in the season on October 9th, 2014.
The Vintage: 2014 Harvest began with one of the earliest bud breaks in local history. Other than that, the growing conditions were just about perfect, with normal to slightly below normal yields. The malolactic fermentation finished quickly due to the warm weather.
Winemaking: The fruit was handled in the gentlest way possible: hand sorted and fermented in small open top fermenters, with a minimum of three punch-downs per day, done by hand. As usual, the most effort was spent in extracting as much of the beautiful Zin aromas without the harsh tannins. The malolactic fermentation was done in barrels; aging was done in one-year-old French and other European oak barrels for about 16 months.