About 2016 Niner Fog Catcher
Wonderfully balanced vintage where optimal flavor development and great natural acidity gave many high quality barrels of wine to select from.
Tasting Notes:
2016 Niner Fog Catcher is a harmonious blend of intriguing spice, dark fruits and expansive tannins that linger on your palate for minutes after drinking. This wine is rewarding to drink in its youth, but it has high aging potential and we expect it to evolve beautifully over the next 10-20 years.
Barrel Selection:
2016 Niner Fog Catcher was aged for 29 months in 90% new French oak.
Growing Notes:
Heart Hill Vineyard sits 17 miles east of the Pacific Ocean in the Willow Creek District of the Paso Robles AVA. The site’s steep, rocky hillsides and ocean proximity create world class growing conditions. Fog Catcher represents the best that the vineyard produces each year and has depth, outstanding color and incredible age worthiness. The 2016 vintage was defined by a drought lifting rainy winter, warm spring and even temperatures throughout the growing season. In other words: as close to perfect a vintage in Paso Robles as you can get. The result was a wonderfully balanced vintage where optimal flavor development and great natural acidity gave many high quality barrels of wine to select from.
Winemaking Notes:
Fog Catcher is equal parts high quality grapes and dynamic winemaking techniques. This combination creates a dark, rich wine with luxurious texture, precise tannins and an underlying freshness. The foundation of the 2016 Fog Catcher is a co-ferment of the best block of Cabernet Sauvignon with a small amount of Petit Verdot. After harvest, a selection of other noteworthy Bordeaux barrels were marked and tucked away into the cellar to mature. Nearly a year later, the Winemaker revisited each barrel to make his final decision on which barrels qualified for this wine. The composed blend then returned oak barrels for additional aging.
About The Winery:
Niner Wine Estates is a family owned estate winery. The family aspires to make great wine from two distinct vineyard sites in the central coast of California.
Their flagship blend is Fog Catcher and they are focused on estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir & Chardonnay.
The vinery’s goal is to grow high quality grapes and make delicious wines that are intentionally crafted to tell the story of each vintage and vineyard. In the winery, they strive to preserve the most unique qualities of each vineyard and vintage. They want to express those qualities alongside elegance and balance, using minimal inputs.
Niner family considers itself lucky to have two Winemakers. Winemaker Molly Bohlman is responsible for the wines from Jespersen Ranch and Patrick Muran is responsible for Heart Hill Vineyard & Bootjack Ranch wines. This division by vineyard allows them to fully focus on bringing the intricacies of each site forward in the wines. All wines are fermented, aged and bottled at the estate winery located at Heart Hill Vineyard.
Richard Niner grew up as one of eight children raised on a farm in rural West Virginia. He spent his childhood working on the farm to provide food for his family, and eventually became one of the first in his family to attend college. He graduated from Princeton and then Harvard Business School. He then began a long and respected career building small businesses across a variety of industries, from sunglasses to machine parts.
He eventually met Pam in New York City, while she was working as a magazine editor after graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts. The pair married and had two children, Andy & Katy.
In the early 1990s, one of Richard’s ventures introduced him to the beauty of the Central Coast. The people here reminded him of his upbringing in West Virginia, and he saw the high potential for the area to compete with premier wine regions like Napa, which was booming at the time.
This return to farming was a return to his West Virginia roots, and in his mind one of the ultimate crops to work with. He purchased his first vineyard in 2001 and spent the next decade building out the rest of the business and hiring a team to help run it. Our tasting room & winery opened in Spring of 2010 and remains the heart of our estate.Eventually, Andy took over the day-to-day management of the business and they remain family owned and operated today.
