Ancien Pinot Noir Mink Vineyard 2020, Coombsville, Napa Valley, California

The Mink Vineyard is located next door to the winery, in the Coombsville Viticultural Area in the southeastern corner of Napa Valley. Open to the same morning fogs and afternoon breezes that cool Carneros to the west, Coombsville is consistently one of the coolest pockets in Napa. Mink sits inside a small “bowl”, allowing cooler air to settle during the evenings, and making Mink’s mesoclimate a couple degrees cooler than the surrounding hills. But the real secret to Mink’s explosive flavors, smooth, mouth-coating minerality, comes from the soil. Underneath the top few feet of alluvial clays and cobblestones (typical throughout the southern reaches of Napa), is a layer of compressed volcanic ash, called tufa. The tufa drains the top soils, storing moisture in rich clays underneath. The vines are able, with some work, to grow roots into the tufa layer, accessing moisture during the long, dry growing season. The grapes were destemmed into small, one-ton, open-top fermenters, with traditional hand punch downs, and aged the wine in Billon cooperage, a barrel that tends to sit subtly underneath the delicate fruit, lifting aromas without crowding them. The wines were racked once, gently, prior to bottling. Grapes, must, and wines were moved using gravity through to the barrel and a gentle push with inert gas through racking and bottling. “A bright and juicy vintage from this small backyard vineyard in Coombsville, this vintage of Mink Vineyard Pinot Noir abounds in fruit notes we love from this vineyard. Darker fruits blend with notes of cocoa to balance the bright juiciness of blueberry and plum. Fine, chalky tannins and minerality balance the hedonism of the Mink fruit and beckon you in for another mouthwatering sip. Age in the bottle will reveal the underlying depth of this wine as it evolves and broadens on the palate.” – from the Winery