{ White Experiment W2.5 }

With the reigns off, we changed our Sauvignon Blanc sources to a vineyard in Sonoma and another in Carneros. Additionally, we wanted to capture a little more freshness in the blend and were very intrigued by some Albariño from Murphys – near Yosemite. Our aim with this iteration was to explore more of what California has to say, find a little more freshness in the blend, and try co-fermenting some of the Rhone varietals.

After tasting wines from and visiting a variety of sites, we chose our new Sauvignon Blanc and Albariño vineyards. The fruit was harvested and whole cluster pressed, with a portion of the Viognier and Roussanne juice being blended for co-fermentation. Fermentation was conducted in barrel via native yeast. In 2015, we moved the blending forward to January rather than May, allowing the wine to marry more prior to bottling. Similar to 2014 W1.4, the lees were stirred every two weeks for 8 months prior to bottling.

Our new vineyard selections thrilled us and moved our blend in a great direction, with the Albariño being particularly exciting. Perhaps the most interesting finding for us, though, was the interaction of our co-fermentations. We found that some varietals can be very dominant in a blend – such as Viognier – while others are very complementary. This provided some seeds for us to explore with our estate wines as we looked to start co-fermenting them (see 2017 Experiment F2.7).