Wildflower

Valdiguié is a very large-berried variety, requiring extra vigilance from our Arroyo Seco vineyard crew to prune to only one bud per spur and aggressively thin any extra shoots pushing from the cordon. Otherwise, yields are too high, and ripening becomes difficult for this late-maturing variety. In our winemaking, the goal is to preserve the wonderful natural acidity and fresh fruit character of this varietal. We incorporate two different fermentation techniques to achieve this. For our final pick of the season in 2017, we hand-harvested roughly one-third of the fruit and put those whole clusters directly into the fermention tanks, in a winemaking process called carbonic maceration – no crushing, punching down, or pumping over of the whole clusters is performed. The balance of the fruit was fermented by a more conventional technique of gently de-stemming to the fermenter, then pumping over and extracting with a fairly short, warm fermentation. Combining these two processes creates a wine with great similarity to the best “Crus” of Beaujolais, with enticing berry fruit flavors, a vibrant color and soft tannins.