Willakenzie Pinot Noir Kiana 06
Wine Spectator rating 87 points.
MORE INFORMATION
Kiana is the first release of Pinot Noir from this estate vineyard block. The wine's style is a bit of a departure for us in that it emphasizes freshness and fruitiness without sacrificing depth and length. The nose features a burst of floral aromas, mostly violet, and a sweet caramel tone integrating beautifully with ripe red fruit. The mouth is bright, fresh, and vivacious, with juicy ripe fruit. This is Pinot Noir at its silky best with a long and satisfying finish and one of our favorite wines from a young block in the vineyard. Drink now or age for 5-8 years.
VINTAGE
The winter preceding the 2000 harvest was moderately wet and seasonably cold. Although a cold snap in the third week of April damaged a number of vineyards in the Willamette Valley, we were slightly affected on only a couple of slopes and there was no significant impact on the harvest for us. Despite a bout of 90-degree weather in late June, the fruit set very nicely. The rest of the summer was sunny, slightly cooler than normal and very dry, except for 1.2" of rain during Labor Day. Our compost and natural nutrition program, combined with a mild irrigation regime towards the end of the season, allowed us to maintain very healthy vines, which carried a beautiful crop of grapes with great flavors, acidity and sugars. We started picking by hand on September 27 and finished in mid October. All the Estate grapes were harvested for the third year in a row under perfect conditions between 23 and 25 Brix.
VINEYARDS
The vineyard is named after Ronni and Bernard's granddaughter Kiana, which is Hawaiian for goddess. The vines were planted in 1996 and 1997 using new Dijon clonal material including Pinot Noir 777. Two different rootstocks were used according to the structure of the soil. The young vines were drip irrigated regularly for the first two years, then sparingly thereafter. The berries produced are characteristic of the new Dijon clones, tending to be smaller with a higher skin to juice ratio, which results in more intense flavors in the wine. Yield: 2.2 tons/acre Brix: 24.3 TA: 6.1 pH: 3.48
FERMENTATION AND AGING
In our gravity-fed winery, this 2000 Pinot Noir was handcrafted to achieve a fully extracted and complex style. During this process, a cool maceration preceded the open-top, Burgundian style fermentation for a total of 21 days of skin contact and daily punchdowns by 'Bigfoot', our pneumatic punchdown device. The wine was then gravity fed directly to barrels where it underwent 100% Malolactic fermentation during the next six months. The wine spent a total of 12 months in 100% new French oak from a selection of four coopers. The wine was bottled unfiltered and unfined. Alcohol: 13.5% pH: 3.85 TA: 4.8 Residual sugar: < .02% (dry)
