Fruit for this wine was harvested in the cold fog of a Russian River September morning. After being hand-sorted, grapes were left in tank for five days to cold soak. During fermentation, three punchdowns per day were utilized to extract as much of the flavor and supple tannin as could be coaxed from the skins. Early on in the growing season, the fruit showed much darker fruits than that of Olivet Lane or our other single-vineyard wines, and as such was assigned a slightly more aggressive barrel program, seeing barrels with greater sweetness and tannin structure to balance the brilliant fruit flavors. Seven Mules was a great candidate for an extra couple of months of aging than Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, spending a total of 15 months in barrel.