During our first few years as vintners, we discovered that our estate Pommard clone drinks beautifully when aged in newer oak barrels. In 2007 we decided to pull off four barrels and produce a 100% Pommard clone Pinot, aged in 50% new French oak. We now produce this wine annually.
The 2012 Clone 05 Pinot Noir is crafted with the same gentle methods as our other Pinots: hand-harvested, 70% destemmed with 30% whole clusters, hand punch downs, then fermented with wild yeast and wild ML cultures. This wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered.
The 2012 vintage was as ideal as we’ve seen in Anderson Valley. In many ways it reminded us of 2007 — the grapes ripened evenly and right on schedule, and no major weather events arrived during summer or harvest. In short, this was a great vintage at Charles Vineyard and for the North Coast in general.
Although we started listing ingredients several years ago (with our 2010 Charles Vineyard Semillon), 2012 is the first vintage that this statement will appear on all our Foursight wines.