Ridge Lytton Spring Dry Creek Valley Red Wine 2005 750ml

Only 1 Bottle Left!!!
77% Zinfandel, 17% Petite Sirah, 6% Carignane. Bottled January 2007. The 2005 growing season was delayed by sustained spring rains and cool temperatures. Such conditions can interfere with flowering and fruit formation, but to our surprise the vines set a record crop. To assure intensity, we dropped up to half the clusters on the young vines. Still, reminiscent of 1997, every fermentor was soon filled. Unseasonably cool weather slowed the start of natural yeast fermentations; the resulting cold soak maximied the deep color. The thirty-one separate parcels completed a natural malolactic and were racked to air-dried american oak barrels. In assemblage, a third of the wines (some from young vines, soem from vines picked overripe) was held out. This elegant, full-bodied wine, with its firm tannins and intense, complex fruit, is among the finest of recent vintages. Enjoyable now, it wil develop further over the next ten years.