PHOENIX VINEYARDS

1998 Napa Valley Estate Merlot

Winemaker's Notes:

Varietal %s: 90% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc (from Hill Block and House Block)

Date of Harvest: Oct 15th and 22ndBrix at Harvest: 23.1-25.0 Brix

Length of Ferment: 7-9 days with up to 17 days total skin contact time (15 days avg.)

End Alcohol: 13.5%

Time in Oak: 8 months in 6 month old American Oak (one third)

Bottling Date: July 12th, 1999 (No fining or filtration)

212 cases produced

This wine is the debut vintage of our Estate Merlot. It serves as a testament to the uniqueness and quality of fruit our Estate produces. The wine shows the classic characters we know and expect from our vines in a cool season. Our Merlot blocks on the Estate, House Block and Hill Block, are together only 1.7 acres of land. Our small vineyard, while able to produce big wines, will never produce large quantities of them.

The 1998 vintage was quite a contrast to 1997. Our Merlot crop level was down almost 25% from 1997. The 1998 vintage was a late vintage and the spring weather was wetter than usual and quite mild. In early summer the temperatures skyrocketed to record levels. The mild spring weather had not prepared the succulent tissues of the vine foliage and fruit to withstand scorching. Many vineyards lost fruit due to sunburn. Heat damaged fruit can also present problems in the winery during the fermentation. The vines of Phoenix Vineyards fared quite well through all of this due to the vigilance of Vineyard Manager David Bader. Properly timed irrigation kept our fruit from burning.

But we were not out of the woods yet. There was some rain during September with a cool weather system following. A significant rainstorm was forecast for the first weekend in October, which would have dropped 2 inches of rain. This could have been a disaster for the quality of the harvest. Growers throughout Northern California, ourselves included, breathed a sigh of relief when the storm never showed and we had over 3 weeks of wonderful warm weather to bring the rest of the harvest in.

As in previous vintages we crushed our Estate Merlot into open-top fermenters. During the fermentation we used a combination of punching-down and pumping-over of the cap to extract color and character from the skins. We chose a slightly shorter barrel aging period to showcase the delicate fruit of the wine. The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

The wine shows the characters we have come to expect from our Merlot in long, cool seasons. The aromas are a mix of dried spices (sage, tea and even some black pepper) and cassis with raspberry aromas coming out readily with exposure to air. The mouthfeel of the wine is round and soft showing many of the fruit characters noted in the nose. Some toasty oak and vanilla notes are also present but in the background. While this wine does not have the tannin structure of our 1997, it can be enjoyed now and will continue to maintain this elegant balance over the next few years. It would pair well with a wide range of dishes including salmon, beef and lamb.