2013 BY Unrefined Red
| Vintage: | 2013 |
| Varietal Composition: | |
| 43% | Cabernet Franc |
| 25% | Merlot |
| 23% | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| 7% | Syrah |
| 2% | Petit Manseng |
| Harvest Date: | Oct 6-12, 2013 |
| Sugar: | 22.5 avg brix |
| Acid: | 6.00 g/l |
| PH: | 3.95 |
| Aging: | Oak |
| Barrel Aging: | |
| 15 months | |
| 25% | Fourth Use Virginia Oak |
| 25% | New Virginia Oak |
| 25% | Second Use Virginia Oak |
| 25% | Third Use Virginia Oak |
| Ageability: | 4-6 years |
| Fermentation: | Stainless Steel |
| Bottling Date: | Feb 21, 2015 |
| Residual Sugar: | 0 |
| Alcohol %: | 12.8 |
| WERating: | 86 |
Definitely a steal at this price. The Boneyard Red 2013 shows some incredible complexity taking ripe red and black berry fruit and marrying it well with some iron like minerality, cedar and smoke notes. This really is a complex little bottle of wine with the stuffing to age for 4-6 years.
Wine Enthusiast April 2015 Buying Guide 86 points Red fruit notes of currant and cherry are bright, with a slightly spicy undertone and zesty acidity. This light-bodied blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre, Dornfleder and Cabernet Franc is accessible and easy, with mild tannins providing just enough structure to hold it together. —A.P.
Most of the fruit for this wine came from Carter Mountain Vineyard in the Monticello AVA. Only the Syrah and Petit Manseng were from Nevaeh. The Carter Mountain was a perfect match to blend for this wine. With its higher elevation it maintains a freshness to the wine that brings a level of overall balance to the wine. The cooler nights from the elevation and the rocky sub soils allow the vines to slowly mature and get great flavor development while still maintaining a great structure to hold the overall wine together. The Syrah is from the Road Block which is consistently the hottest part of the Nevaeh Vineyard with the exception of one cool pocket the lies at the Southwest corner of the Syrah. The hotter portions give more weight and riper fruit characters whereas the cooler portion brings balancing acidity and older world styled smoky and meaty characters. The Road Block is predominately Penn Silt Loam so causes slightly shallower root systems and more fruit forward wines to blend with the mineral driven Hill Block.
The 2013 vintage will often be remembered as the year that took 5 off the end of every winemaker’s life span. In the end, it all came together with a brilliant harvest time, but leading up was constantly scary. The wines show great vibrancy and finesse with the early ripeners shining like Chardonnay and Merlot. There was some struggle with the later ripeners getting them fully mature. The season started very late with a very cold and wet spring. We did not see bud break until the start of May which is unheard of. Everyone thought it was a blessing in disguise and that at least we wouldn’t have to worry about frost. We were wrong. We had the latest frost I remember on May 14th and while it did not do tons of damage, it did weaken the vines going into the season. The rest of the summer season we unseasonally wet and cool so we knew we would have trouble ripening the late riperners and had to get all the canopies wide open and drop fruit. In the end dropping fruit came back to bite us as the frost and cold weather forced the vines to start aborting some fruit as well. It also forced the worse animal damage (birds, raccoons, etc.) that we have seen because their nature food sources in the forests were wiped out from the tough year. The sun came out close to the end of August and stayed through the picking season which was great. It allowed us to be patient and harvest some superb fruit with incredible balance. In the end we quite like what we have from 2013, but the downfall is it is the smallest harvest on record, by far.
The 2013 Boneyard Unrefined Red was one of the more classically produced wines of the Boneyard line-up. They couple of “interesting” differences making this truly Boneyard in spirit is the addition of Syrah and Petit Manseng to an otherwise Bordeaux style blend and that the Petit Manseng was used to co-ferment with the Merlot. The grapes were destemmed only to open top fermenters with punch downs occurring twice per day during fermentation. It was only once a day prior to and post fermentation until the cap fell. The wine enjoyed an 8 day cold soak and fermented over two weeks with an additional week of post-fermentation maceration. The wine was pressed to Virginia oak where it spent 15 month being racked only once post Malo-lactic fermentation. The has been bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Jordan has really been getting into Sous Vide these days and says this wine is perfect with Pork Tenderloin simply seasoned and cooked at 135 degrees for 3 hours in the sous vide. The proteins balance the tannins and the acidity balanced perfectly with the juicy loin. That said it will also work beautifully with a simple Roast chicken or some pasta Bolognese. This a wine to drink all week long!
200 Cases of 12 bottles