Wines> Library Wines> 1996 Arcus Estate Pinot Noir
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ORIGIN: Arcus, meaning “bow” in Latin, describes our vineyard that wraps around both sides of a small valley in the Red Hills of Dundee. With such a distinctive terroir, this wine from a single vineyard rewards Pinot devotees with an expansive nose, elegant finish, and outstanding expression of true Pinot Noir crafted in Burgundian tradition with new world techniques.
VINEYARD: Vines at Arcus Estate are planted on a very steep slope which makes farming difficult, but produces intensely flavored rich fruit. From very low-yielding 20 year-old traditional Oregon Pommard clones, the grapes were harvested with great ripeness in early October.
WINEMAKING: A unique finesse is achieved by the delicate and gentle handling of grapes throughout the winemaking process in our 100% gravity flow facility. This wine was vinified traditionally by sorting the fruit, cold soaking the grapes with 15% whole clusters, using native yeast and gently punching down one to three times a day. The wine was racked to 70% new Remond French oak barrels for malolactic fermentation and was aged for 13 months. Neither fined nor filtered, the 1996 Arcus Estate was bottled in late October 1997.
TASTING NOTES: This bright red Pinot Noir boasts deep aromatics of rose petals, carnations, ripe raspberries, spice, minerals and sweet oak. Concentrated fruit flavors integrate with fine tannins and balanced acid that lead to a lush mid-palate with a very long and elegant finish. Profound, complex, and subtle, the 1996 Arcus will drink beautifully and improve over the next ten years.
This vintage produced 1,416 four-bottle cases and was also available in 3-liter bottles.