H & L ESTATE MERLOT RUSIAN RIVER VALLEY

Upon arriving from the vineyard, our Merlot is gently destemmed and crushed before being moved to tank to begin fermentation. During this process, we carefully return fermenting wine onto its own “cap” of grape skins to extract all of the color, flavors and tannins. We then press the remaining skins, and the resulting wine is aged for approximately 18 months in a combination of 20 hand-selected American and European oak barrels.