Canihan Family Cellars
2005 Exuberance Pinot Noir
Sonoma County, Alexandra's Reserve

Gold Medal - San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
Gold Medal - 2008 West Coast Wine Competition

Canihan Wines is based in the southern end of the Sonma Valley, where their estate vineyards have a climate much more similar to Carneros than to the rest of the Valley to the north.  This makes it ideally suited for cooler climate varieties like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  In exceptional vintages, Canihan will select a small number of barrels to go into their Exuberance line of reserve wines, which represent the finest that this organically farmed vineyard has to offer.  With plenty of structure and intensity, these wines are perfectly suited to cellaring, and we were fortunate enough to pick up the last few cases of their 2005 Exuberance Pinot Noir, which is aging beautifully.

The 2005 Exuberance Pinot Noir Alexandra's Reserve is pale garnet in color, with just a touch of bricking at the rim, which is appropriate for a wine of this age.  The nose offers intense aromas of dark berries, spice, earth, and dried flowers. The palate has beautifully integrated with age, showing cherry, berry, vanilla, mint, baking spice, and a touch of toasty oak, finishing with smooth tannin.  After 7 years of aging it has integrated and softened, resulting in a lovely wine sure to delight Pinot Noir fans.  And best of all, we are able to offer it at an incredible 33% off.  This wine doesn't need any more cellaring, and once you have tasted it, you won't want to wait to open your next bottle anyway.

100% Estate Grown
100% Dijon Clones 115, 667 & 777
Harvested on September 28, 2005
Aged 12 months in 100% French Oak
13.7% Alcohol
Total Acid: 0.54g/100ml
3.87 pH
Bottled on September 19, 2006
200 Cases Produced

About The Winery...

The Canihan Family vineyards are ideally located in the Sonoma Valley, and because they border on the Los Carneros Appellation, the vineyards receive the cool evening breezes and early morning fog from San Francisco Bay that provide for perfect grape growing conditions. Biodynamic vineyard management practices, dry-farming, and hand-harvesting only at complete ripeness, fermentation with naturally occurring native yeast, and no fining or filtering result in flavorful wines expressive of our “terroir”.

More at www.canihanwines.com.

<< previous  |  next >>