Honeymoon 2018
Varietal:
85% Colombard, 15% Chardonnay
Alcohol:
12.5%
Vinification Notes:
Ever-so-slightly off-dry due to some favorably botrytized Colombard (once in a decade condition). Reminiscent of a Loire Chenin blanc, one of Colombard's parents.
Vineyard:
Colombard comes from Ricetti Vineyard in Redwood Valley; planted in 1948; certified organic; dry farmed.
Chardonnay comes from Hawkeye Vineyard in Redwood Valley; organic.
Tasting Notes:
Ever-so-slightly off-dry due to some favorably botrytized Colombard (once in a decade condition), reminiscent of a Loire Chenin blanc. Vibrant aromas of honeysuckle, a bit of beeswax, and preserved lemon. The palate is inviting with flavors of wildflower honey, candied ginger root, and chamomile. This wine is beautifully textured with integrated acidity.
Martha's Notes
The star of the 2018 Honeymoon is once more 70 year-old Colombard from dry farmed, head trained vines. Colombard can throw a large crop load and has largely been written off as a blending/filler grape, or has been used traditionally for distillation into cognac, but with old vine age, dry farming, and by allowing a long hang time, Colombard can be as complex as its parent, Chenin blanc. This is our last lot to come in every year at the end of October. 2018 was a cool year and we got some botrytis in the Colombard (yay!), so were left with 2 g/L of residual sugar in the final wine. Both the Colombard and Chardonnay were whole cluster pressed, and went to neutral barrel on their full juice lees to ferment (natively, as with all our wines). They aged for a year in barrel on the juice and yeast lees, were blended, and a minimal dose of SO2 was added. We filtered the Honeymoon this year due to the residual sugar.
Production Notes
Production: 321 cases
At Bottling:
At bottling (July 2019): free SO2 4 mg/L, total SO2 29 mg/L. Vegan.