2021 • Out to the Meadow 2021

Out to the Meadow 2021

Varietal:

66% Chenin blanc, 16% Vermentino, 11% Trousseau gris, 5% Green Hungarian, 2% Chasselas Doré

Alcohol:

12%

Vinification Notes:

Co-fermented field blend. Foot tread and left on its skins for a couple hours before going into the press, then fermented and aged, unracked on lees, in neutral oak barrique for 6 months. Unfined. Unfiltered. Sediment expected.

Vineyard:

King Vineyard, Fairfield, Suisun Valley; historic field blend; grown with compost teas and without pesticides and herbicides, fungicides are synthetic; clay soils.

Tasting Notes:

Expansive and textural, this historic field blend complements the whole farmer’s market haul. You’ll meet gentle aromas of creamed honey and oyster mushroom lounging in your glass, but at the end of the day, this bottle is all about body.

Tableside Talk

What California white wine may have tasted like before Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc dominated the scene. Taste (almost) lost history. Out to the Meadow is a co-fermented field blend of five white grapes that were around in early California grape growing history.

Martha's Notes

I feel very lucky to work with this one-of-a-kind parcel in Suisun Valley. Matthew Rorick of Forlorn Hope Wines researched what a historic Californian white field blend would have been comprised of, then took cuttings from some of the few remaining vineyards still growing these grapes before the vines were pulled out of the ground, and convinced grower Roger King to create this “library block” from them. Matthew passed the torch to me and I now work with this small block exclusively. I named the wine after the landowner and farmer, Roger King, who came down from the mountain after a youth of skiing, and went ‘out to the meadow’ to grow wine grapes. Roger has been enthusiastically farming it for 30 years. After naming the wine I found a Tom Waits interview where he uses the expression "We went out to the meadow" to describe a synergistic collaboration among musicians. This makes sense. I think the grape varieties all have a synergy when co-fermented, and Roger has also been the most collaborative grower I have ever worked with.