The fruit is from two vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley AVA. The majority is from the hillsides of Bien Nacido Vineyard, a mix of clones 115, 2A, 113, and 114.  That is complemented by our estate Le Bon Climat Vineyard Pinot Noir, which is mostly clone 67 with a small amount of the Mt. Eden clone, that fulfills the blend to create another year of the “wild party up stairs”.
 
As with all our Pinot Noirs, we are “hands-on”. Every Pinot Noir is fermented in 5 ton open-top fermenters, and punched down once or twice a day. These punch downs breakup the cap of skins that rises to the surface back into the juice so the fermentation process extracts the best part of the Pinot grapes. The wine is pressed to complete dryness and goes to barrel with moderate lees. Our “La Bauge” Pinot Noir is aged in 50% new French oak barrels made by the cooper Francois Freres located in the heart of Burgundy in the small village of St. Romain. The wine was carefully racked in the spring and then aged another 20 months (24 months total).  It was lightly fined with 4 egg whites per barrel, and then bottled unfiltered.