2008 August Briggs Russian River Pinot Noir

The Russian River Valley has established itself as one of the premier locations for Pinot Noir in the world. The wines from this appellation consistently show the fruit driven exuberance of California, while displaying the earth and complexity of the grape from its homeland in Burgundy. The grapes for this wine were sourced from the Cummings, Dutton, and Archer vineyards.

Our Russian River Pinot Noir can be our most “Burgundian” style pinot noir, but in 2008 this wine shows plenty of pretty cherry, violet, and strawberry upfront with a bit less earth and leather in the background. It has a nice core of fruit flavors such as ripe cherry and raspberry with a bit of spice at the end. The finish is long, rich, and warm. It is well structured and age worthy. Pair with moderately spiced dishes of grilled chicken, pork, and even beef.

After hand sorting, the clusters were destemmed into a small open-top fermenter. After a two day cold soak, the must was inoculated with Assmanhausen yeast. The cap was punched-down twice daily, by hand. After a gentle pressing the wine was inoculated for malo-lactic fermentation and barreled down to traditional burgundian barrels. The barrels used were 30% new French oak and 70% two and three year old French barrels. The wine was aged in barrel for 8 months, and bottled without fining or filtration.
Only 503 cases produced.