Qupe 2006 Roussanne, Bien Nacido Hillside Estate
$40.00
2006 QUPÉ ROUSSANNE “BIEN NACIDO HILLSIDE ESTATE” This wine is 100% Roussanne grown from Block 10 at Bien Nacido Vineyard. Block 10 is a west facing hillside slope just opposite the winery. It is planted entirely to the Tablas Creek clone of Roussanne, which came originally from Château de Beaucastel. The grapes were harvested during a brief heat wave on October 23rd at 25.5° brix, 3.24 pH and 8.4 acidity… beautiful numbers if a bit on the riper side. The grapes were whole cluster pressed, the juice chilled overnight and settled for a day, then transferred directly to barrel. I used exclusively one year old François Frères Burgundy barrels, barrels we had used once for chardonnay. The wine went through complete malo in barrel and was aged on the lees for the first 11 months. It was finally racked, and then returned to neutral barrels for another 5 months (16 months total barrel time). 610 cases (1220 six packs) were bottled without filtration in March 2008. This is a bigger, richer, riper wine than the 2003, 2004 or 2005…. I would have preferred to get the grapes in at about 24° brix, but you can’t always get what you want! That said, this wine is absolutely delicious. At a recent Roussanne symposium I was apologizing to my colleagues about the wine’s size, and yet it blew away most of the other wines shown. This is big on the hedonistic scale and probably should be consumed over the next 5-7 years, while you’re waiting for the 2005 to mature.
More Information
- Year: 2006
- Varietal: Roussanne
- Region: Santa Maria Valley
- Wine Maker: Bob Lindquist
- Vineyard: Bien Nacido
