2016 finally brought much needed rain to Sonoma County, temporarily ending our drought woes. The water helped the vines immensely and we had a beautiful growing season from bloom to harvest. Our crop size went up just slightly from the small 2015 vintage to bring us up to a more typical year. Flavors were full and developed and overall the vintage was a standout. Our Rockpile Cabernet Sauvignon was harvested by hand from steeply trellised terrain starting at daybreak. The grapes were hand sorted both in the vineyard and in the winery before being crushed and destemmed to an open top fermentation tank. The grapes were cold soaked for 5 days to extract the maximum amount of flavor, then inoculated and fermented on the skins for 14 days. After being gently pressed off the skins, the wine was moved to 30% new French oak and the remainder used oak barrels where it completed malolactic fermentation and was racked twice in the 22 months before being bottled.