Rootdown Trousseau, St. Amant 2023 (750 ml)

100% Trousseau
St. Amant Vineyard - Amador, CA
Alcohol: 12.7%
TA: 4.9g/L pH: 3.64
Bottled June 2023
320 Cases Produced

Tasting Notes
This is your chillable red. We can't speak enough of this beautiful expression of this grape. You can see through this classic copper red color wine but don't be fooled. The flavor and finish are impeccable. Mild black pepper, baked rhubarb, cherries, anise and Matzutaki mushroom elevate out of the glass. The palate is left with dragon fruit, rooibos tea, sweet beet and a fresh, grippy yet soave sensible tannins.

Mike's Notes
The Saint Amant Vineyard is near and dear to Mike Lucia's heart; being one of the very first vineyards he started working with when Rootdown was born in 2014. Following a frost year in 2022, we were blessed with an amazing 2023 vintage. By far the best I've worked with since 2014. This growing season allowed us to harvest in 2 picks. One for acid and one for a little ripper flavor profile. Fermented in small open top oak fermenters and small stainless steal tanks, we found our perfect combination of whole cluster vs de-stemming. Here's the recipe for success:
⅓ 100% De-stemmed
⅓ 100% Whole cluster
⅓ 50% De-Stemmed 50% Whole cluster
Mike prefers a gentle mixing of the cap to capture more delicate aromatics and the choice of fermenting styles allow for a semi carbonic style in the finished wine. The wine is aged in neutral barrels for 8 months until bottling.

St. Amant
St. Amant was planted in 1972 to ungrafted Zinfandel. Later that decade, a section of this Zinfandel was grafted over to five Portuguese varieties after the owners became interested in Port-style wines. Bastardo (née Trousseau), one of the few Portuguese varieties UC Davis had at the time, was St. Amant's first Portuguese crop in 1981. After a spell with Phylloxera, a pesky root-chewing louse, they replanted their Port varieties on Phylloxera-resistant rootstock. The 1.8 acres of organically farmed grapes that Rootdown sources in this vineyard were planted in 2004 on Honcut soil (deep, well-drained soil formed into somewhat coarsely textured alluvium from base igneous and granitic rocks) atop floodplains and moderately sloping alluvial fans.

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