Our debut Meritage, this offering was harvested from the Saint Hilaire vineyard, situated in the Salinas river valley just east of Templeton, California in the Paso Robles American Viticulture Area. The wine was aged in 40% new French oak barrels for 22 months. The wine was not filtered or fined. The wine received another nine months of bottle aging before being released. This is a big, dark, richly structured wine with amazingly depth, smoky hints of raspberry, cassis and vanilla!

We recommend decanting the wine and allowing it to breath for twenty minutes before drinking. Unfiltered wines may have some sediment present in the bottle or on the cork. When decanting, you may wish to reserve a small amount of wine in the bottle which will retain any heavy sediment that has settled to the bottom.

For more information on this wine, see our winemakers notes PDF.