1240 Orchard Avenue • Napa, California 94558
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Tasting Notes • 2003 Muir's Legacy

This wine is only available thru our tasting room

Harvest Date:	September 18 and October 21, 2003
Sugar Level:	24.6º Brix
Total Acidity:	0.52 g/100ml
Vineyard Source:	Hanna Vineyards, Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley Particelli Vineyards, St. Helena
Fermentation:	7 days with 3x daily pump overs. Pressed at 0º Brix.
Malo-lactic:	Three months in tank.
Barrel Aging:	25 months in French oak, 5% new. Two rack and returns.
Bottled:	3 March, 2006. 219 cases produced.
Alcohol:	14.6% by volume.

Muir’s Legacy is a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petite Verdot.  The cabernet sauvignon comes from the Particelli Vineyard in St. Helena (Michael’s in-laws and farmed by Hanna Vineyards), vertically trained cordons on six foot by eight foot spacing oriented north-south.  The cabernet franc and petite verdot come from the John Muir Hanna ranch, and the merlot comes from Bill & Claudia Hanna’s ranch.  Both Hanna ranches run east-west and employ a quadrilateral cordon system.  The John Hanna Vyd uses 110R rootstock and Bill & Claudia’s merlot is on 1103-P rootstock.

The merlot was destemmed immediately after harvest(18Sep) with a portion crushed and a portion left as whole berries.  The must was allowed to cold soak for two days before the addition of D-254 yeast.  During fermentation the juice was pumped over three times daily.  It was pressed after six days when all measurable sugar was used, and racked.  The wine’s malo-lactic conversion took place from Oct – Dec.  It was racked and barreled down on Jan 13, 2004.

The cabernet followed a similar course but delayed by one month.  The M/L conversion was more rapid and it went to barrel on Jan 14.  The cab franc and petite verdot were harvested Oct 28 and fermented in a small open topped container with two daily punch downs.  It was pressed on Nov 7 and added to the tank of merlot.

The wine was aged for twenty five months in French oak barrels, 5% of which were new.  It was topped every month and racked twice during aging.  A final racking  preceded filtration and blending.   The wine was bottled on March 3, 2006.  We produced 217 cases plus two cases of magnums.