This single vineyard wine comes from Casas del Bosque´s estate, located within the coolest, westernmost reaches of the Casablanca Valley. The vines where planted between 2003 and 2014, and are equipped with drip irrigation. Crop levels average 8 tons per hectare (3.4 tons per acre). After picking, the grapes were crushed to a pneumatic press. The resulting juices were left to macerate and cold settle for 5 days following which time they were racked to stainless steel tanks, inoculated with selected yeasts and fermented at temperatures between 12 and 18ºC. Following fermentation the young wine was left for a few weeks on its gross lees (without stirring) before blending. After blending the wine was clarified, cold stabilized and filtered. Bottled occurred on August 27th, 2020. Total production was 3.500 cases.

Casas del Bosque´s flagship variety is undoubtedly Sauvignon Blanc. In 2019, they started working with consultant Sam Harrop, Master of Wine, originally from New Zealand, with the intention of developing a wine that intrinsically reflects a “sense of place”. The ultimate goal was to create a Sauvignon Blanc that is an authentic – and distinct – reflection of Casablanca in a glass. The “La Cantera” blocks are on a hillside in the vineyard, near the quarry that gives the wine its name. The iron rich, ancient granite soils make for an ideal place to grow clone 242 (which makes up for about 70% of the wine) and clone 107 – both from France. The 2020 vintage in particular, comes from a slightly warmer and thus shows notes of grapefruit and passion fruit. The aromatics are intoxicating – intended to
propose a bit of novelty in a marketplace, that feels otherwise dominated by Marlborough and Sancerre renditions.

Frequent foggy mornings, warm days and cool nights characterize the valley. The average temperatures in summer are 66ºF and in winter 51ºF. Mean diurnal shifts in March were around 55ºF. Yearly rainfall is around 15 inches, falling mostly between May and September.