2020 Mustang
Tasting Notes
Comprised of 43% Grenache, 43% Syrah, and 14% Mourvèdre, this medium-bodied wine captures the essence of the three varietals displaying notes of blackcurrant and sweet plums with underlying notes of barbecued meats and a touch of minerality. The finish is smooth and exceptionally well-balanced with velvet-like tannins that exits the palate with a long, lush and elegant finish. Enjoy now through 2034 with optimal maturity in 2030.
Vineyard Designation
100% Estate Grown
Vintage Notes
The 2020 vintage will go down as a very memorable year. The growing season was exceptional with a mild winter, warm spring, and moderate summer. Bud break occurred 2 weeks earlier than normal and veraison was well ahead of schedule too. Just as we were preparing for an early start to harvest, wildfires in the Northwest created a thick cloud of smoke over Washington State. Concerns arose about exposure to smoke. Taking a cautious approach, we delayed harvest until the smoke cleared and conducted trials to determine the effect of smoke on our grapes. Fortunately, results showed no sign of smoke taint. Proximity to the source of smoke plays a big factor, and our vineyard was a long distance away. Overall, we have not seen any impact of smoke on the 2020 vintage. Another major event of this vintage was an early frost that occurred the second week of October. Our winemaking team worked tirelessly long hours leading up to the frost. By the time our vineyards had been impacted by the cold spell, our winery was stuffed with fermenting grapes and harvest was 95% complete. All remaining grapes were then hand-harvested and sorted with an optical sorter to remove any excessive M.O.G. or bad grapes. After our wines completed alcoholic fermentation, we were very pleased with the results. We at Airfield have another stunning vintage for you to enjoy. The 2020 wines showcase an abundance of ripe fruit aromatics, low tannin profiles, and exceptionally balanced finishes.
Winemaking Notes
All of the varietals for this blend were sourced from reserve tier blocks on our estate vineyard, hand-harvested at optimal maturity, hand-sorted, and then sent to small-batch stainless steel bins or concrete tanks for fermentation. Fermenting in concrete helps create complexity and intriguing layers of minerality in the wines while accentuating fruit aromas. Treating each varietal with delicacy is critical in our program for this wine to ensure we have expressive varietal aromatics while simultaneously being gentle on the palate. Doing so requires the utmost attention to detail for each lot, we try to get as much extraction as possible early in the fermentation stages before the presence of alcohol is a factor. This gives us ample color and vivid aromatics, then we taper off the extraction to a gentler extraction method to ensure we have a lush and velvet-like texture on the wine. Once each lot was dry on the skins, we free run the wine from the skins and send the skins to the press for gentle pressing to extract the remaining juice. For aging, we chose large format (500L) French oak barrels with 55% new, 25% 2-year-old, and 20% neutral French oak. All these elements allow the complex fruit notes in the wine to be the star while creating a nice touch of oak that is balanced in the wine. During the first three months of aging, the lees were stirred twice a month to naturally soften the wine and to create more roundness on the palate. Overall, the wine was aged for 18 months in French oak, then sent back to a concrete tank for one month of additional concrete aging before being sent to stainless-steel tank to prepare the wine for bottling.
Food Pairing
Braised Short Ribs
Venison
Beef Stew
Bleu Cheese
Grilled Mushrooms or Eggplant
- Varietal Composition: 43% Grenache, 43% Syrah, and 14% Mourvèdre
- Appellation: Yakima Valley
- Cases Produced: 341
- Alcohol: 14.5%
- pH: 3.87
- Acidity: 5.8 g/L
- Ageability: Now through 2034