2005 Chris Lee Pinot noir (Library Wines) -- Tandem Winery Shopping Cart -- noir Pinot Lee Chris 2005

<H1>2005 Chris Lee Pinot noir -- Tandem Winery Shopping Cart</H1> $60.00 <IMG SRC="https://store.nexternal.com/tandem/images/ChrisLee-2.jpg" ALIGN=right ALT="2005 Chris Lee Pinot noir" NAME="2005 Chris Lee Pinot noir" BORDER=0 HSPACE=10> Just over two acres in a lava ash field were planted by Chris and Chris Lee, a husband and wife team with the goal of producing either stellar Pinot noir, or nothing at all. Greg L had seen the vineyard a couple of years before and, after having made some vine husbandry suggestions, took the challenge in 2005 to coax just a little less than 200 cases from this unique and viticultural-isolated site. Our friend Steve Yafa took a special hand in guiding this wine, overseeing the late vineyard watch, the picking and the fermentation. A portion of this wine also went into his own Segue label. Vineyard: Many of the vines in this vineyard are extremely low-vigor, trying to grow in the volcanic ash in the trough between Sonoma and Bennet mountains. The challenge here is to coax any crop at all from the white, chalk-like soil. Shoots don’t even grow up to the second trellis wire, and berries are the size of currants, with plenty of sunlight and air moving through the very open, tiny clusters that do appear. The Chris Lee vineyard sits alone in wildly-undulating terrain that exists in a small valley actually above and to the North of the Sonoma Valley, in a narrow vale created by the shoulders of the mountains bearing their famous AVA (American Viticultural Appellation) names. We’re pretty sure no one else will be planting nearby, at least any time soon, ensuring that the work the Lees have done will remain unique, and the wine enigmatic in California’s Pinot noir profile. We hope you will enjoy this special, terroir-driven wine which is borne of volcanic soil, celebrated in its tending by friends and family and created as a true “tandem” effort between the land and our hands. Technical Data: <ul> <li>Harvest: Picked at optimum sugar, acid and tannin ripeness (24.2 Brix, 8.9 g/L acid, rich/dark texture) on September 29, the tiny berries and clusters were only partially destemmed (approximately 12.5% whole cluster), with no crushing. Yield was under 2 tons/acre, with much of the weight going to stems and skins due to the fantastic skin-to-juice ratio. The must (juice and skins) was transferred by gravity to a 4-ton open-top dairy tank, which also has the ability to gently extract flavor with a great surface-to-volume ratio. Hand-plunging was gently applied to this, as all Tandem Pinot noir vats.</li> <li>Fermentation: Primary fermentation was a difficult start, with 11 days of cold soak before the native yeast, or more probably due to the length of time, winery-indigenous yeast took off. Primary was cool and slow, but completed dryness shortly after pressing off at around 0.5 Brix (% sugar). Secondary fermentation finished quickly and un-inoculated also, within a month of primary’s completion.</li> <li>Barrel aging: We used only 12.5% new French oak in the aging of this wine for 11 months in small, 228 L barriques. The selected forests were mostly from Troncias and Allier coopered by Remond and Francois Freres, the majority of which were once- and twice used for Chardonnay fermentation.</li> <li>Final bottling technical information of 211 cases of this unfined and unfiltered Pinot noir:</li> <ul> <li>pH: 3.52</li> <li>TA: 6.7 g/L</li> <li>14.9% alcohol</li> <li>Residual sugar: 0.12% (very, very dry)</li> <li>Appellation: Sonoma Valley</li> </ul> </ul> <LI>SKU: T705PNCL Other products in the category <A HREF="http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Category5" TITLE="Library Wines">Library Wines</A>: <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product29 TITLE="2004 Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay">2004 Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay</A> <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product46 TITLE="2004 Sangiacomo Pinot noir">2004 Sangiacomo Pinot noir</A> -- 94 POINTS - Pinot Report <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product51 TITLE="2005 Sangiacomo Chardonnay">2005 Sangiacomo Chardonnay</A> <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product32 TITLE="2004 Hellenthal Pinot noir">2004 Hellenthal Pinot noir</A> -- Limited <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product33 TITLE="2004 Peloton Red Wine">2004 Peloton Red Wine</A> -- Limited <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product13 TITLE="2003 van der Kamp Pinot noir">2003 van der Kamp Pinot noir</A> -- 91 POINTS - The Wine Enthusiast <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product39 TITLE="2004 van der Kamp Pinot noir">2004 van der Kamp Pinot noir</A> <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product65 TITLE="2005 van der Kamp Pinot noir">2005 van der Kamp Pinot noir</A> <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product5 TITLE="2003 Keefer Ranch Pinot Noir, Green Valley">2003 Keefer Ranch Pinot Noir, Green Valley</A> -- ONE OF THE BEST PINOT NOIRS - Sunset Magazine <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product54 TITLE="2005 Auction Block Pinot noir">2005 Auction Block Pinot noir</A> <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product56 TITLE="2005 Peloton Red Wine">2005 Peloton Red Wine</A> <LI><A HREF=http://www.nexternal.com/tandem/Product60 TITLE="2004 Gabrielli Sangiovese">2004 Gabrielli Sangiovese</A> <A HREF="http://www.nexternal.com/tandem" TITLE="Tandem Winery Products">Tandem Winery Products</A> <A HREF="http://www.tandemwinery.com">Tandem Winery</A> Tandem Winery <A HREF="http://www.nexternal.com" TITLE="ecommerce software">ecommerce software</A> powered by Nexternal