Prior vintages of Deep End Gewürztraminer have been produced primarily from vines in the uppermost block in our West Hill vineyard, where the soil is thinner and the vines typically bear a lighter but more intensely flavored crop. In this vintage, a portion of the wine is from the West Hill vineyard, but the lion's share comes from the uppermost block of the East Hill vineyard. Since they both share the top of the same hill, they share similar soils and the vines on both upper blocks bear lighter crops. However, they have different exposures and the weather during each particular vintage determines which field we pick for our best Gewürz. Alsatian Gewürztraminer wines are typically balanced with some residual grape sugars and this bottling follows in that tradition. We ferment and age all our Gewürztraminer sur lie in refrigerated French oak ovals and most casks are allowed to ferment dry. Wines destined for the Deep End bottling are tasted daily when the grape sugars are under 1% and the fermentation becomes sluggish—perhaps 0.033% in sugar reduction per day.

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