West Coast Wine Cruising! (Harvest Club August 2022)
Harvest Club Wines:
August in the Vineyard is continual Veraison for all of the berries!
All the little green berries slowly begin to change colors depending on grape variety. Some from green to yellow, to pink, to purple, to even black!!
This color changing is due to the chlorophyll in the berry skin being replaced by anthocyanins (red wine grapes) and carotenoids (white wine grapes). In a process known as engustment, the berries start to soften as they build up sugars. Within six days of the start of veraison, the berries begin to grow dramatically as they accumulate glucose and fructose and acids begin to fall.
Featured Wines:
"A blend of five grapes, all ranging in skin-contact, and a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. The party consists of Albarino, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Riesling and a touch of Pinot Noir Rose’.
Orange to golden yellow color. Unique aromatics of pineapple, quince, orange blossoms, bran cereal and baby aspirin. Fleshy peach and clementine peel on the palate." (Winery)
"Only 12 acres of this grape are planted in California, also known as Cabernet Pfeffer. These grapes are farmed organically by the Siletto family in the San Benito AVA. Picked at 22 brix on 09/17/21, 50% whole cluster, native fermentation, aged 5 months in neutral French oak - plus 1 stainless steel barrel.
Light red color with purple, magenta hues. Aromas of violets, ume, white pepper with earthy notes. On the palate strawberry, turkey fig, a dab of horseradish with grippy tannins." (Winery)
Composed primarily of Verdelho, Albariño, Muscat, and Chardonnay, this beautifully nuanced and irreverently elegant wine shows all of the aromatic complexity and textural presence that are the hallmarks of wines grown on the limestone of our estate.
90 points Wine Enthusiast: "Made from estate-grown biodynamic grapes in a blend intended for immediate drinking, this is a fun, fruity and front-loaded red wine with a mix of red fruits, leafy herbs, tobacco, tea and toast. It's a versatile wine that falls into no specific category but delivers pleasure from the first sniff to the last swallow."
""With a delicate straw robe, this blend of Grenache blanc, Roussanne, Clairette expresses with great elegance and great intensity its floral aromas, white fruit and citrus zest. Linden, jasmine, fennel, pear, medlar, mirabelle plum, white peach, underlined by a subtle and fresh minerality and a note of white pepper and toasted almond. The attack on the palate, of great elegance, is round, fleshy, followed by a pleasant freshness for a full and persistent finish which carries floral and white fruit notes in length." (Winery)
Sparkling rosé wine obtained from 80% Pallagrello Nero and 20% Aglianico grapes, processed according to the ancestral method. Once in the cellar, the grapes are destemmed and then spent a few hours in contact with their skins. The must is then divided into two parts: one proceeds with fermentation to give the base wine, the other is used as a liqueur de tirage for the second fermentation that takes place in the bottle. Unlike the traditional classic method, this sparkling wine does not undergo disgorgement but is offered intact on its natural yeasts. (Winery)
"The olfactory tract tastes of peony, pomegranate, currants and black cherries but it is in the mouth that Londro Rosato unleashes all its energy thanks to a slight tannic presence and a measured roughness given by the balance of Aglianico that introduces the right dose of territoriality and determination. The closure is fresh, fruity, delicately savory and...the bottle ends immediately especially if there is a beautiful marinara or margherita pizza to keep it company. Seeing is believing!" -Luciano Pingnatoro (translation)
About the Producers:
Jean-Pierre Serguier and son Florian | Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Rhone Valley, France | @vignoblesimian
Château Simian is above all a family story. For five generations, this estate, located at the foot of the Massif d'Uchaux, has crafted unique wines with a permanent quest for expression of terroir. They mainly produce wines from France's oldest and most famous appellation, Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Jean-Pierre Serguier, the heir to four generations of winemakers, manages this mosaic of sand and pebble terroirs with his son, Florian. They cherish the freedom of creation in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape appellation, allowing the presence of no less than 18 grape varieties on the estate.
To create the perfect representation of the local soil diversity, they treat this unique land with care and respect, working only with biodynamic practices. The family limits intervention during the winemaking process, resulting in the production of grapes of exceptional quality, characterized by thick skins, rich in color and aromas with silky tannins.
Kristie Tacey | Healdsburg, Sonoma County, California | @tessierwinery
Kristie Tacey grew up in Essexville, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. degree in Microbiology. She subsequently spent 10 years as a research scientist, first working at the UM medical center before migrating west to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and ultimately to Celera, a biotechnology company, to continue her scientific career. Kristie worked on the Human Genome Project and on diseases of the central nervous system, research that led to several publications in scientific journals.
But she found that life as a scientist was turning more into computer analysis and statistics and less into lab work. Moreover, Kristie was introduced to the world of wine and winemaking and had been thinking, what else could she do with her microbiology degree? A cousin who was a winemaker in Sonoma kept urging her to make the leap into winemaking, and Kristie realized that this profession was the perfect blend of science and art. She had found her true calling!
Kristie earned a certificate in winemaking from the University of California, Davis, and landed a position as assistant winemaker/operations manager for Lost Canyon Winery, an urban winery in Oakland. While there, she garnered high scores from Wine Spectator and two gold medals from the San Francisco Chronicle’s wine competition for her Lost Canyon 2007 Saralee’s Vineyard Pinot Noir. Adding to her expertise, Kristie became a Certified Specialist of Wine in 2013.
In 2009, she founded Tessier Winery in Oakland, where she focuses on small-batch, artisan Pinot Noir. (Women Winemakers of California and Beyond)
Matthew Rorick | Calaveras County, Sierra Foothills, California | @forlornhopewines
Matthew Rorick has been the winemaker behind the Forlorn Hope wines since the inception of the label in 2005, and tends 75 acres of organically farmed grapevines at Rorick Heritage Vineyard. In previous incarnations he has repaired submarine telescopes for the United States Navy, ridden skateboards for a living, and built electric guitars. His love of wine was fostered in him by his grandfather David Rorick Jr., who was a consummate dining partner and storyteller. His current efforts at RHV, including producing organically farmed estate wines and reconnecting with California’s pre-Prohibition viticultural traditions, are largely inspired by conversations at his grandfather’s table.
Forlorn Hope's estate wines are grown on Rorick Heritage Vineyard. Located in Calaveras County, just outside of the town of Murphys in the Sierra Foothills, the site was first ranched by the Shaw family in 1844. The property was purchased by Barden Stevenot in the 1960s; he became the godfather of the modern Calaveras County winegrowers when he planted own-rooted Wente Chardonnay from 1974-76. We are grateful that several acres of these original heritage plantings still remain - they are a direct link to the first person who recognized the potential of this site's soil and climate for winegrape cultivation. Barden eventually expanded the vineyard to its current 75 acres in 2000; Matthew Rorick purchased the property in 2013 and converted the farming to organic practices. At an elevation of 2000′, it is situated on limestone soils beneath a top layer of schist. The alpine growing season combined with limestone soils leave an indelible mark on the wines grown at RHV: beautiful aromatics, textural presence, and bright natural acidity are all hallmarks of the site.
Troon Vineyard | Applegate Valley, Oregon | @troonwines
Troon Vineyard is a Demeter Biodynamic® Certified and Regenerative Organic Certified™️ farm in Oregon’s Applegate Valley. We naturally craft wines to bring pleasure to your life. Troon Vineyard is dedicated to regenerative agriculture and we practice Biodynamics® in our quest to put back more than we take from our plants and soils. We believe the only route to memorable wines, that reflect the terroir of where they were grown, is to be found in the healthy soils and vines that are the foundation of Biodynamic® agriculture. This philosophy continues in the cellar where our winemaking is minimalist and we use only native yeasts with no additives to ferment our wines and eschew the use of new oak barrels to reveal each nuance of wines grown in Oregon's Applegate Valley. We “Farm like the world depends on it”, which is the slogan of the Regenerative Organic Alliance and reflects our vision for our farm, for our wines and for our planet. We are located on the Kubli Bench, high above the Applegate River in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon. It is a biodiverse farm of almost 100 acres. Life on our farm includes cider apples, a vegetable garden, re-wilded honeybees, sheep, chickens, wildlife, dogs, humans and, of course, grapevines.
Winemaking at Troon is straightforward and minimalist. Our grapes are field sorted by the same vineyard crew that tended them all season. Our goal is to express our vineyards rather than winemaking techniques in our wines. All Troon Vineyard wines are fermented only with native yeasts and no commercial yeasts, acids, sugar, enzymes or additives are added to any of the wines. Our white wines are whole-cluster pressed then barrel fermented in mature French Oak barrels. For “Orange Wines” we are now using clay amphorae to allow extended skin contact after fermentation. We make a range of fun pétillant natural sparkling wines, naturally fermented in bottle. For red wines, we focus on using whole-cluster and whole berry fruit in our fermenters, then use only mature French Oak barrels for aging so that every nuance of our unique Applegate Valley fruit can express itself in our wines.
We are a new entity on a new voyage with a new mission since the arrival of owners Denise and Bryan White. Biodynamics® will reinvigorate our soils and our vines, but it is also reinvigorating us. It is those combined energies that will be expressed in our wines. Wines full of energy are exciting wines and we could not be more excited about making them. Our desire to make special wines from what we know is a vineyard, a terroir, with exceptional potential is what started us on this voyage to begin with.
The vines, the soil, the place, the wines, and the people are all becoming one. (Winery)
Gennaro Reale | Terre del Volturno IGT, Campania, Italy | @fattoria_selvanova
The Selvanova vineyard park consists of 10 hectares, all located on the hill that slopes gently from the company headquarters towards the banks of the Volturno river. They are divided into five different plots for both exposure and altitude. Vineyards, planted between 1999 and 2002, where Pallagrello Bianco and Pallagrello Nero (the two most strictly typical vines of this part of Campania) and Aglianico and Fiano (leading vines of Campania viticulture) took up residence. The Selvanova wine labels tell this story through the artistic imagery of the paintings of Alessandra Illiano, a young painter trained in the artistic laboratory of the Aquilone Departmental Rehabilitation Day Center (of the Mental Health Department of the Asl Napoli 1 Centro, managed by the Gesco group through the cooperative Era). Colorful and postmodern urban settlements on the banks of the river, in the middle of which there is the graphic and stylized representation of a raft, which has become the company logo.
The territory where Selvanova is located has always represented the right environment for the growth of vine and olive trees with its clayey soils set between Mount Taburno and Partenio to the south and the Matese Massif to the north; its cool microclimate in summer and temperate in winter thanks to the Volturno river. Selvanova is located in this fairytale setting, in the Squille hamlet of the Municipality of Castel Campagnano in the province of Caserta, in Campania. First of all, healthy viticulture to affect as little as possible, with human action, what nature has formed over thousands of years. This cultural background, totally dedicated to the ethics of business management, has convinced Gesco to invest in this project since 2018, proudly carrying forward its philosophy and goal. Gesco is a group of social enterprises from Campania and one of the main ones in Southern Italy. It mainly deals with the management of socio-assistance and social-health services and in recent years in the context of the diversification of business programs, it has invested particularly in the sectors of the environment, tourism, catering, sustainable mobility, information and culture.
Harvest Club $180/month
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