2011 Elias Pinot Noir Wine

Our Home Ranch block 3 Pinot Noir was planted to three clonal selections from Torres, Cambria and Mondavi. The vines were planted 5' x 9' on 101-14 & 3309C rootstocks in 1992. In 2008 we planted an additional 12 acres of Pinot using budwood from the original block, along with 20% clone 667.

The 2011 growing season proved to be very cool, and similar to 2010 with three notable exceptions. Rain at the end of June reduced set in cultivars that were in bloom. It had little effect on early blooming Pinot Noir. Second, we had no heat spikes in 2011. The very temperate summer provided great flavor development and retention of acidity. Finally, two rains drenched the region in early October. Happily, we had already picked our Pinot. We harvested it on September 20, and 22, 2011 at an average Brix of 25.0^o.