This wine is our attempt at crafting a classic balanced and age-worthy red wine—wine like the wines produced and collected around the world when people like Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchill wouldn’t have dinner without a bottle of Claret. Old school age-worthy wine with finesse but with guts, and complete from beginning to end. The blend is roughly 56 percent Merlot, 30 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 10 percent Cabernet franc, 2 percent Malbec, and 2 percent Petit verdot. The fruit was fermented at low temperatures in small, open-top tanks and punched down by hand one to three times a day, depending on taste during the fermentations. Maceration was 24 days. The wine was partially co-fermented (fermented together as one lot), and the remainder racked and blended before malolactic fermentation, so that the wine could marry from the very beginning—much magic happens during fermentation, and co-fermenting can create a seamless wine in a way that doesn’t always happen with blending after the fact. The wine was aged in 50% new French oak (Taransaud), and 50% older French oak barrels. The wine was given 20 months of elevage (aging in barrel). Only 370 cases were made. The 2012 vintage was long and mild, and created soft wines with abundant fruit—very different than the cooler and edgier 2011 vintage. 2012 complemented the typical bright red fruits and mineral character with a rich black fruit component and classy cedar and tobacco aromas. As always it has its classic cherries, dark chocolate, Marionberries, olive, black tea and forest characters. There is the trademark structure for aging