2021 • Honeymoon 2021

Honeymoon 2021

Varietal:

65% Colombard, 35% Chardonnay

Alcohol:

12%

Vinification Notes:

Colombard and Chardonnay harvested separately. Both pressed immediately, settled overnight, and then racked off gross juice lees to ferment in neutral oak barrique. We taste the juice lees during racking to determine how much to include (discarding overly bitter-tasting lees) and then re-distribute the lees evenly across all barrels. Aged in barrel, unracked on fine lees, for 9 months before blending and bottling. Unfined. Unfiltered. Sediment expected.

Vineyard:

Colombard from Ricetti Vineyard, Redwood Valley, Mendocino County; planted in 1948; head trained, dry farmed (non-irrigated), practicing organic vineyard; gravelly loam soils.

Chardonnay from Dicesare Vineyard, Redwood Valley, Mendocino County; dry farmed (non-irrigated), certified organic vineyard; gravelly loam soils.

Martha's Notes

The star of our Honeymoon is the 70+ year-old Colombard from dry farmed, head trained vines. When young, Colombard can throw a large crop and has largely been written off as a blending/filler grape, or has been used traditionally for distillation into cognac. However, with old vine age, dry farming, and by allowing a long hang time, Colombard can be as complex as its parent, Chenin blanc. The Honeymoon, to me, is always a layered wine, where I try to achieve some tertiary characteristics alongside brightness and fruit. Barrel fermentation, lees contact, and longer elevage to achieve these layers once again. Alongside Ricetti Vineyard Colombard, Honeymoon 2021 features Chardonnay from Dicesare Vineyard, which is located next to grower Pete Johnson’s Hawkeye Ranch and directly across from his family's Redwood Valley pear orchard. The Johnson’s continue the same meticulous farming at Dicesare: fully organic, dry farmed and tended by hand.