Merlot Cabernet Iugum 2018 - 13,5% vol. Peter Dipoli Winery

Description: 
Intense ruby red in the glass. It opens to the nose giving olfactory scents of ripe forest fruits, which are enriched with spicy juniper hints and flavors of aromatic herbs. Warm on the palate, energetic in the tannins, full bodied and intact on the fruit. Long persistence and pleasantly almond closing. Peter Dipoli's goal is to make a great red wine that reflects its terroir and could be barrel aged and withstand long bottle ageing.
Iugum means “yoke” in Latin. A yoke is a wooden bar used to hitch oxen together, but the word is also used in very early agricultural texts in reference to vines being trained on a support. 

Grape variety: 
Merlot - Cabernet Sauvignon - South Tyrol Alto Adige DOC. 

Production area: 
The Vineyard is located on the slope of Magreid/Magré, one of the warmest vineyard sites of the Alto Adige on an altitude from 300 to 350 m a.s.l. It faces east and southeast with calcareous, clayey soil. The warm temperature and the soil structure with a high clay content determined the selection of Bordeaux varieties. 

Vinification: 
Merlot is harvested from mid-September and Cabernet Sauvignon from mid-October. The Grapes are de-stemmed, crushed and vinified separately. Fermentation takes place in open wood barrels for 10 days with punchdowns twice a day. Both Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon undergo malolactic fermentation in new barriques. Afterwards Cabernet Sauvignon is aged for 12 months in new barriques. For Merlot second and third run barriques are used. 12 months after the harvest the wines are blended together. After 8 months ageing in concrete barrels Iugum is bottled. Wine ages in bottle until 4 years after harvest. 

Food Pairing: 
Excellent with red meat based dishes and game meat. It is perfect with roast pork with juniper berries. 

Serving temperature: 
16 - 18°C. 

Ageing potential: 
more than 10 years. 

Bottle to: 
750 ml - 75 cl - 0.75 lt. 

Allergens: 
Wine can contain suphites. 

Producer: 
Peter Dipoli Winery 
Some years ago I put my lifelong passion for wine into practice by becoming a wine producer. I wanted to make wines that would reflect my ideas about which grape varieties to use, and about the most correct and respectful ways of turning them into wine. I believe that each grape variety should be planted in the environment that best suits it. The producer’s job is to transform the grapes – as naturally as they arrive from the vineyards – into wines that express the characteristics of soil, habitat and growing season these grapes are a fruit of.A respect for these factors precludes all predetermined styles of wine, too often produced following momentary fashions. I am happy when consumers understand a wine to be the result of specific growing conditions, with whatever natural variabilities these may entail. Only then they can appreciate a great wine as being a unique and true expression of a grape, its territory and its producer. 

Tenuta Peter Dipoli 
Via Villa 5 
IT - 39044 Egna (BZ) 
info@dipoli.it 
www.dipoli.com