2002 VIN DU SOLEIL ROUGE
Purisima
Mountain Vineyard, Santa Barbara County
While syrah is gutsy and
intense, blends of syrah, mourvedre and grenache are lighter on
their feet, and have a drink-ability that can't be…beat. Our 2002
offering is the first one we have made that features a majority
of mourvedre, so it shows off the racy qualities of that varietal.
We go through a huge amount of effort to get top quality mourvedre.
In this case we are using a superior French clone that was brought
into the state relatively recently, and work to control the crop
quantity by trimming each cluster seven times. The resulting wine
was totally captivating and required only a little syrah and grenache
to give it balance and completeness. The Vin du Soleil is exciting
to drink now, yet it will continue to develop for 5 to 8 years.