The wine is the prize jewel of the 2005 harvest. This wine is perhaps
less astonishing than the 2005 Cena, but it is much more beautiful,
much more direct. It is our best Babylon yet; the clear culmination
of our effort and learning in the vineyard. We managed to grow the
grapes in 2005 without irrigation, in the midst of a very vigourous
cover crop, and the vines responded by thinning their own fruit.
We had to witness the terrifying phenomenon of clusters spontaneously
shrivelling on the vine, day after day, as we waited for perfect
ripeness in the vineyard. Not shrivelling from heat, sun, drought--
this would have affected every cluster nearly evenly. Rather, one
cluster among four or five or ten would suddenly stop ripening,
begin to dimple, then lose all turgor, and within a few days, look
like a dessicated corpse. It was not beautiful-- except that we
knew that every remaining cluster would be stronger, perhaps had
been stronger from the beginning-- that the vine had chosen for
us, and had chosen according to the most exacting, and deeply hidden,
criteria. How could we not make good wine?

A perfect incarnation of this barbarian outlier. Less fierce than the 2004, ready to delight