From The Winery-

Vineyard - Heringer Estates The Heringer family has a long history of farming in Clarksburg and has begun setting the example for organic farming in the region. The Nebbiolo we make from their vineyard is one of the lightest and most varietally correct you will find in California. That being said, the five rows of Nebbiolo they have planted is quite different from what we see in Italy. The soils are much richer here in the delta, the weather is much warmer and the vines are pruned in a completely opposite way than what is the tradition in Italy. It’s trained on a quadrilateral cordon system and cropped at five tons to the acre. The traditional method is cane pruning and one is likely to see much lower yields. As with all of the fruit we work with, we make picking decisions based on pH, flavors, the color of the seeds, and separation of pulp and Brix. In that order. We picked this vineyard in ’18 and ’19 at the same pH: 3.2 with brown seeds. In ’18 Brix was 23; in ’19 Brix was 22. If we had waited longer, as most do in this situation, we may have achieved darker color but clearly the alcohol would have been very high and we would have missed out on all of the great natural acidity and perhaps the tannin, too. This is why we stress picking early so much.

Cellar This is one of our wines we refer to as partial-carbonic since we do not destem or foot tread the clusters. We simply pour them into open top, one ton fermenters, put the lid on and let nature take its course until we press at about 0 Brix to a neutral 600L oval shaped foudre, some neutral puncheons and stainless. The wine remains sur lie until we bottle without fining or filtration in March.

Numbers Harvest dates: September 8 and 20 23.0 Brix 3.2 pH 12.36% Alcohol