The 2021 Tenor Merlot is comprised of two small vineyard parcels within the greater Columbia Valley: Wallula Gap Vineyard in Horse Heaven Hills and Dionysus in the White Bluffs AVA.
During the 2021 vintage, our winemaking team worked with each vineyard manager to proactively restrict yields, which created extremely concentrated berries. Cool, fall nights preserved a sense of freshness in the wine, while flavor continued to develop. The harvest of both vineyards took place in the cool early mornings of mid-October.
Once arriving in winery, the fruit was cluster-sorted, de-stemmed, and berry-sorted. The wine spent 48 hours cold-soaking, before careful fermentation, lasting 14 days. The wine was left in tank for extended maceration for an additional period, to further extract the unique aspects of the vintage and provide maximum integration. The free-run wine was cellared in varying formats of 100% new French oak. After 21 months in select cooperages, 4 barrels were meticulously selected and carefully blended.
The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered to ensure everything was preserved as intended: purity, vibrancy, and intensity. Only 97 cases were bottled.
The Tenor Merlot features two separate Merlot clones: clone 6 and clone 2.
