2012 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir

The perfect spring weather in 2012 led to our first large crop at the Graham Family Vineyard since 2006.  August West partner Howard Graham and his vineyard manager Charlie Chenoweth actually got to thin the crop multiple times during the summer of 2012 due to what looked like such a healthy amount of Pinot on the vines.  This was the first time they were able to do that in many years.

 

Other than the clones 667, 777, 828 and 23 we received from the Graham Family Vineyard, we also added some clone 23 from the Keefer Ranch to this year's Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.  Keefer and Graham are only about 1 mile apart, but they produce Pinot with distinctly different flavors.  Graham always provides an earthy, loamy, deep Russian River Valley fruit profile to the resulting wine.  Keefer adds floral and bright berry aromas and flavors as well as much higher acidity than Graham.  The two vineyards blend very well together.

 

The 2012 August West Russian River Valley Pinot Noir is already drinking well at this release, which is amazing since it was just bottled in July 2013.  We anticipate it developing and adding complexity for several years, and predict an ideal drinking window of 2014 to 2020.

 

Wine Profile

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