North America | California | Caparone | Merlot

Merlot

VARIETAL
Merlot

NOTES
VINEYARD: Grapes are grown near Templeton, CA in a vineyard pocket of cooler days and nights relative to the greater Paso Robles growing area. The climate is extremely dry, which causes vineyard pests, mold and other problems to be virtually nonexistent. The soil is mixed alluvial, with both sedimentary and igneous rock, and has good moisture holding capacity. The vines are widely spaced, and simply trellised, and irrigation is kept to a minimum.

VINIFICATION: The techniques used are mostly a collection of traditional European winemaking practices; they include hand-racking, long skin contact, submerged cap fermentations, several years of barrel aging, and a year of bottle aging. All of the wines are unfined and unfiltered. Caparone does take advantage of modern technology where appropriate: temperature controlled, closed stainless steel fermenters, for example. While the way they make wines is slow, labor intensive and different from most California producers, they, and we at Oz, feel it’s worth the result.