May the 2005 rest in peace

peugeotbottling_apr28.jpgLast Saturday afternoon and evening, we bottled the last of the 2005 Le Peugeot. It was our first experiment with extended aging, and I think I speak for everyone that it sure tasted successful.

The final stats: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc. Approx 13.9% alcohol. 18 months from fermentation to bottling. While the Peug’ only saw a few months of 2-year old French oak (the rest essentially neutral), the wine had exceptional structure all the way through the taste.

And that fragrance: it’s like some summer afternoon, and you’re wandering along some dirt road with lazy grass rocking in the soft breeze to one side; a complicated bramble of raspberry canes backing up against a forest to the right. The sun passes out of the clouds, and suddenly everything heats up, squeezing the scent out of everything around you — especially the raspberries, since you’re within scratching distance of them. But just as it begins to envelop you, the sun slips behind a cloud, and the chill of the forest is sucked out by the heat of the road like a vacuum, through the raspberries, wafting warm – yet somehow cool – fruit over you like perfume.

Mmmmmm. Is bottle shock over yet?

More photos below the fold …

Sophisticated labeling equipment - and check out the machine, too
The label must be just so, or the wine will be ruined.jpg
Our elegant and hermetic new top label.jpg
The workers must be fed

1 comment

1 Comment so far

  1. JMCQ May 2nd, 2007 6:57 pm

    And then some French guy pops out of the tall grass and raspberries and tells you your wine has gender issues. Quel — or perhaps we should say quelle — dommage.

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