Detail
Saxum Vineyards is focused on producing Grenache, Syrah, and Mataro based blends from the Willow Creek District of Paso Robles. We let our rocky calcareous soils, steep hillsides, sunny days, and cooling ocean breezes speak through our wines by keeping our yields low, picking the fruit at the peak of ripeness, and using a minimalist approach in the cellar. We respect our land and farm everything sustainably without chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Because our vines roots penetrate deep through the fissures in the calcareous soil irrigation is rarely needed. Production is kept at 5000 6000 cases a year divided between nine different cuvees, Broken Stones, James Berry Vineyard, G2 Vineyard, Bone Rock, Rocket Block, Booker Vineyard, Paderewski Vineyard, Heart Stone Vineyard, and Terry Hoage Vineyard. The Heart Stone Vineyard is a small seven acre vineyard planted on a gentle South slope of limestone and shale. With eight different clones of Syrah, four of Grenache and one Mataro, we aim to produce a wine that is both compelling and complex. We typically co-ferment all the varieties together with a high proportion of whole clusters, producing a tannic and spicy wine that has great purity and complexity. We age this wine with very little new oak in mostly larger puncheons for 20-28 months. Our wines are never racked off their lees and are bottled unfined and unfiltered. Notes from Justin: OK, Im going to lead off this descriptor by saying this 2018 version is way more structured than the 17. It is a phenomenal wine, but it is going to need some time to chill. This wine, like the G2 and James Berry, was brought up in partial foudre (3000 Liter neutral oak cask), but because the Heart Stone is considerably smaller, it sees a higher proportion of foudre. So there are some tradeoffs going on. With less barrel influence the vineyard and its fruit get to be front and center. I love it, but prepare yourself for less oak influence. As for the wine descriptors, my wife Heather described it best, saying it was like a perfectly cooked steak, char, black pepper and blood. The 2018s are some of the most complex and nuanced wines we have ever released (and will definitely benefit from 3-30 years of aging.) Structured and built like a brick, while at the same time the copious tannins are coming together nicely. I really dig them. To be honest, I was a little scared when I tasted them last. They were so tightly focused and intense. Now Im seeing
