Wildflower

In 2015, we hand-picked roughly one-third of the fruit and put those whole clusters directly into the fermenters in a winemaking process called carbonic maceration – no crushing, punching down, or pumping over of the whole clusters is performed. The other, more conventional technique used in the remaining two-thirds of the fruit, includes gently de-stemming the fruit going to the fermenter, pumping over and extracting with fairly short, warm fermentations. These processes give the wine a remarkable similarity to the wines of Beaujolais, with enticing berry fruit flavors, a vibrant color and soft tannins. A native malolactic fermentation on about 50% of the blend puts an unusual spin on the 2015 vintage by softening acidity and delivering a darker fruit character to the final wine.