People that know great Sangiovese love our "Blood of Jupiter" wine. This new vintage is sure to please our diehard fans and new friends as well.
The 1997 vintage of our Blood of Jupiter Sangiovese marks the latest chapter in our character study of the Sangiovese grape. For this vintage we used a technique which we have used in our Zinfandel production-stem retention during the ferment. We kept almost half of the grape stems in the ferment to accentuate the wine's black pepper character and to add greater structure and extract to the wine. We also used longer skin contact during fermentation than we have in the past with this variety (up to 23 days total). This also helped capture the essence of the grape by extracting more color and other compounds from the grape skins. These options were made possible due to a growing season that provided grapes which were almost perfectly ripened when finally harvested. This helped us acheive a wine with a deep color, bright acidity and exquisite balance.
We used a slightly shorter barrel aging period with this vintage to better capture the intensity of the fruit characters. I don't think I could have said it better myself when Jeff Morgan of the Wine Spectator wrote "Bright raspberry, cherry, and spice flavors lead the way in this juicy, fruity wine, which is tempered nicely by herbal notes, good acidity and firm tannins...Fun to drink" ( June 15, 1999). In addition to the 88 point rating it received in the Wine Spectator the '97 Blood of Jupiter earned a Silver Medal at the 1999 San Francisco International Wine Competition, a Bronze Medal and Best of Class Award at the 1999 California State Fair and was given 3 stars by WineToday.com. Is it the best Sangiovese we have produced yet? We'll let you be the judge.