1998 Cabernet Sauvignon 

 

 

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Winemaker Notes

The challenge of making wine in Washington isn’t really the climate, and it’s not even the availability of water or the access to great fruit… it’s the perception that Eastern Washington gets as much rain as Seattle. We don’t… and I think that when you try our 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon, you’ll agree that Seattle may have its coffee, but we have some of the finest wine grapes in the world.

Pepper Bridge Vineyard grapes have been used in some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines. This Cabernet Sauvignon shows why we decided to begin to hold back some of the fruit to produce our own wine beginning in 1998. The Pepper Bridge Cabernet Sauvignon is beautifully polished with layers of black cherry, plum and sage flavors with and complex herb and oak notes. The long, elegant finish is firm and full of richness and complexity. The wine spent 23 months in 85% new French oak barrels and six months in the bottle before release.

- Jean-François Pellet, Winemaker

Pepper Bridge Vineyard

The first grapes were planted at Pepper Bridge Vineyard in 1991. The vineyards are trained on a split canopy system with the canes positioned up and down off the cordon wire using the Smart-Dyson trellising system

The 1998 Vintage

Walla Walla experienced a warm growing season with a particularly hot, 15-day spell at the end of ripening, when temperatures soared to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of judicious canopy management, however, we had very few problems with dehydration, and the finished wine does not exhibit an excessive over-ripe character. It has plenty of extraction and flavor, which we enhanced by pumping over three times daily during fermentation.

Wine Specifics

Varietal(s): 100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Vineyard(s): 100% Pepper Bridge Vineyard

Appellation:  Walla Walla Valley 

Harvest Date (s): October 14, 1998

Brix at Harvest: 24.8

Total Acidity: 0.59g/ml

pH: 3.78

Finished Alcohol: 13.7% Vol.

Total Production: 830 9-liter cases

Release Date:  March 2001

Suggested Retail Price:  $50.00 

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