Flaherty Wines

We recently finished the first barrel rack for the 2010 vintage, and we have quite the collage of different wines in barrel this year. We received fruit exclusively from the Aconcagua Valley, with four distinctive lots each of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon from the Manzur Encón vineyard next to the Putaendo River, Syrah from the cooler Escorial vineyard next to the Aconcagua River, and Tempranillo from our front yard in the warmer Santa María area. With this racking, the barrels were moved over to Viña San Esteban temporarily while we expanded the press pad / drive way / skateboard park and tiled the barrel cellar and fermentation room / garage. In total we brought in 9,100 kilos of fruit to our home to ferment, which is less than originally planned because of lower yields in the vineyards this year. We invested in a couple more one-ton fermenters to give us more capacity and thus more maceration time.

The harvest started off with Syrah from the Escorial vineyard owned by Gonzalo Manzur. This was the first vintage from this vineyard of clone 300 Syrah. The quality was very good, and we have high expectations for this site as the vineyard matures. Unfortunately, we lost control of the temperature on a couple fermenters, which then stuck. We therefore had to referment these two lots with some Syrah and Tempranillo that came in later. It was a relief to find some very nice results.

The best Syrah came in from the older Encón vineyard, which has rich layers of flavors and wonderful texture on the mouth. The Tempranillo has better color and more concentration than in 2009. The best lots were co-fermented with some stuck Syrah lots, which helped fix color and create added complexity. So what looked like a big problem has actually planted the idea of doing more co-fermentations with Syrah next year. Finally, the Cabernet Sauvignon from Encón this year has ripe flavors, but less intensity than the 2009 vintage. Most of the lots were cold soaked for two days before fermentation and had 14 to 20 days of skin contact before pressing. Overall we are very happy with the quality of the 2010 vintage. As our production slowly expands, however, we will need to improve planning and make some targeted investments to ensure a smoother, less stressful harvest in terms of time and control.