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What I meant by "wedded to blends" is not so much
blend only between vineyards but its belnds between fermentation lots.
It could be within a vineyard
or one vineyard ownership. The term vineyard
we tend to think it's just one little plot of land when actually
a grower can have ten or twenty acres
of small vineyards within a vineyard with different soils,
exposures, or even varieties, clones of one
variety. It will all have somewhat different characters. So what I like to do is to be able to
sort of deconstruct a vineyard and look at the pieces
vinify them separately and then put them back together in an intentional manner
to get the the balance and fit and
finish that I think is really optimal. Once in a great while I may have one single block of
some very interesting material that gives me
that all by itself, but that's typically very rare,
particularly when we are talking about growing single clones of
the grape. You have the less genetic variability
and personality.
The material is going to be more monolithic
just because of the clone. So if you have multiple clones
maybe mixed up together that could be very interesting,
however different clothes tend to ripen at different times,
so for me I prefer to have little swaths
of different clones that I could pick together,
and coferment if I think they belong together thing in the same blend
and if they ripen at about the same time. If they ripen at different times,
we'll pick them separately and and be able to put them together.
If that synthesis of those different
blocks, I think has a consistency
it speaks of this site or this area.
Pinot Noirs is kind of an analog, if you
plant a vineyard vineyard intentionally with different, with
enough different plant material to be able to do that, that's a wonderful thing.
So many vineyards were planted to sell grapes to wineries
that are going to put them together so you might have one or two clones in large
areas.
and,
I think you're less likely to have something with many layers of very
interesting
wine out of one or two clones out of one site so that's why I am
more wedded to putting things together going between vineyards to to accomplish that.