2016 Niner Fog Catcher Red Blend Estate Paso Robles
Paso Robles
100% Estate Grown
Tasting Notes
Named for the cool, grey banks of fog that drift over our vineyards in the early morning, Fog Catcher is our flagship blend.
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 our 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, our 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. The 2016 vintage of 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, and the high potential it has for aging 10+ years is apparent.
Fog Catcher is our flagship blend and is made from our best Bordeaux grapes each year. Heart
Hill Vineyard’s rocky hillsides and temperate weather produce dense, rich and complex wines.
It’s planted with a diverse blend of Cabernet Sauvignon clones along with smaller amounts of
Malbec, Merlot and Petit Verdot that make great blending partners for this wine. We also farm
Carménère at Bootjack Ranch where the warmer climate allows this notoriously tough to ripen
varietal to flourish.
IN THE VINEYARD
The 2016 vintage was defined by a drought liftingrainy 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 us many high quality barrels of wine to select from.
Blend: 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Malbec, 14% Petit Verdot, 15% Carmenere
Vivnous 94 Points
About Niner Wine Estates
FAMILY OWNED & ESTATE GROWN
we are 100% estate grown and the integration of farming and winemaking is the foundation of everything we do.
We currently farm a total of 240 acres across three different vineyards in Paso Robles and Edna Valley, and make all our wine in our LEED Certified Winery at Heart Hill Vineyard. We are known for our estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay as well as our flagship blend Fog Catcher; however, we grow a wide range of varietals and specialize in small lot bottlings that we allocate primarily to our Wine Club Members.
After growing up on a farm in West Virginia, Richard Niner spent his career building small businesses across a wide variety of industries. One of his business ventures brought him to Paso Robles in the early 1990s and he was immediately drawn to the potential of both the land and the people who lived here. After a long search, Richard and Pam purchased their first vineyard, Bootjack Ranch, in 2001 and spent the next decade building a tasting room and winery, finding and planting two additional vineyards, and assembling the current team. In 2013 they retired and their son Andy took over the day-to-day management of the business.
Related products
Paso Robles
100% Estate Grown
Tasting Notes
Named for the cool, grey banks of fog that drift over our vineyards in the early morning, Fog Catcher is our flagship blend.
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 our 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, our 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. The 2016 vintage of 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, and the high potential it has for aging 10+ years is apparent.
Fog Catcher is our flagship blend and is made from our best Bordeaux grapes each year. Heart
Hill Vineyard’s rocky hillsides and temperate weather produce dense, rich and complex wines.
It’s planted with a diverse blend of Cabernet Sauvignon clones along with smaller amounts of
Malbec, Merlot and Petit Verdot that make great blending partners for this wine. We also farm
Carménère at Bootjack Ranch where the warmer climate allows this notoriously tough to ripen
varietal to flourish.
IN THE VINEYARD
The 2016 vintage was defined by a drought liftingrainy 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 us many high quality barrels of wine to select from.
Blend: 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Malbec, 14% Petit Verdot, 15% Carmenere
Vivnous 94 Points
About Niner Wine Estates
FAMILY OWNED & ESTATE GROWN
we are 100% estate grown and the integration of farming and winemaking is the foundation of everything we do.
We currently farm a total of 240 acres across three different vineyards in Paso Robles and Edna Valley, and make all our wine in our LEED Certified Winery at Heart Hill Vineyard. We are known for our estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay as well as our flagship blend Fog Catcher; however, we grow a wide range of varietals and specialize in small lot bottlings that we allocate primarily to our Wine Club Members.
After growing up on a farm in West Virginia, Richard Niner spent his career building small businesses across a wide variety of industries. One of his business ventures brought him to Paso Robles in the early 1990s and he was immediately drawn to the potential of both the land and the people who lived here. After a long search, Richard and Pam purchased their first vineyard, Bootjack Ranch, in 2001 and spent the next decade building a tasting room and winery, finding and planting two additional vineyards, and assembling the current team. In 2013 they retired and their son Andy took over the day-to-day management of the business.
THIRD-PARTY CERTIFICATIONS
In 2023 we were awarded the California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership Award for Business. This award recognizes businesses for their advanced sustainability practices and innovation based on a comprehensive judging process focused on both sustainable viticulture and winemaking.
Our wineries, tasting room and restaurant are certified Silver in the “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” program. LEED is the “globally recognized standard for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings and neighborhoods.” This certification speaks to the way our buildings are built: features like motion-activated lights, night-air cooling and our on-site water reclamation system are all factors.
Our wineries and vineyards are SIP Certified. If you think of LEED as a certification for how our buildings are constructed; SIP (“Sustainability in Practice”) is a certification for how we operate. We could have the most environmentally friendly building around and it would be a moot point if we left on all of our lights and opened up our water taps. The SIP Winery Certification includes a third-party audit that monitors our resource use and operating plans to ensure that we are being sustainable in our practices. In 2016 we became the first winery to achieve this certification.