Limited Edition - Red Blend 2021 - 750 ml 12.5 %
From the producer:
This wine brings all the unrestrained aromatics of these three varieties into a single offering. Vibrantly red fruited with Alpine strawberry, cranberry, rhubarb and a hint of earth beet offered from the Pinot noir and Trousseau. The Gamay noir delivers the structured frame and base notes of violets, musk, star anise and salt licorice. One of our favorite offerings from the windy north-west facing Eola Springs Vineyard this wine allows to present a view into authentic future styles from the Willamette Valley.
This blend allows us to work with Pinot noir, as its authentic self, in the high acid soils of the Willamette Valley the varieties pH can skyrocket as it approaches ripeness. By utilizing Gamay noir (which in the Willamette gives vibrant low pH wines with ample acidity and deep color) and Trousseau to bring fruit and earth tones of beets and rhubarb without weight to the palate.
Trousseau begins the fermentation for our red blend from here we compound ferment adding Pinot noir and then finally Gamay noir. Trousseau is renowned for rapidly accelerating in sugars once it reaches about 20 brix and within 48 hours the variety can reach 24 brix, so we pay a lot of attention to this grape in the vineyard. This block is one of the lowest parts of Eola Springs by design as it is one of the wettest coolest parts of the vineyard which suits this early ripening variety that tends to higher pH, this is a way to curb its enthusiasm. The clone is the Portuguese clone of Trousseau, known as Bastardo or clone 10. Having worked with several clones of Trousseau across the valley we find clone 10 to have the most wildly exotic characteristics here, and it is also later ripening than the other clones.
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