St Supery Napa Valley Rutherford Estate Merlot 2019

The fruit was hand harvested in the cool morning hours and brought to the winery in half-ton bins. At the winery, the clusters were sorted using a double sorting system. First, the clusters were sorted by hand. The fruit then ran through a small destemmer that removed stems from the grapes before the individual berries being sorted to ensure that the ideal grapes were chosen. These berries were delivered to a fermenter where there was a period of resting on skins. Warm fermentation temperatures were encouraged along with gentle cap maceration to achieve the desired color and structure for the wine before an extended maceration time on skins prior to final pressing. The wine was transferred directly to barrel for 19 months of maturation. Forty one percent of the sorted berries used in this blend were fermented in French oak barrels. After fermentation, the wine remained in those same barrels for aging. Sixteen percent of the blend was fermented in small concrete tanks. The different fermentation techniques add layers and textures to the wine.