Try It Out! – A Natural Wine Spritzer
Varietal:
Natural wine base from certified biodynamic and organic grapes, filtered water, organic grape-based spirit infused with Meyer lemons, orange blossom water
Alcohol:
6%
Vinification Notes:
The base wine in this year’s Try It Out! is a blend of certified biodynamic Vermentino with a co-ferment of certified organic Marsanne, Roussanne, and Muscat blanc. These components were fermented completely dry and aged separately in stainless steel vessels for 6 months before blending with filtered water, organic Meyer lemon spirit infusion, and just a hint of orange blossom water for subtle aromatics. Once blended, we gently filtered the finished product for stability and then bubbled carbon dioxide through a pressurized tank to achieve a light, playful spritz.
Tasting Notes:
Lightly carbonated for a soft spritz with citrusy hints of mandarin, lemon, and floral orange blossom. Bone dry yet creamy on the nose, this 6% ABV natural wine spritzer boldly goes where no spritzer has gone before. Try It Out!
Tableside Talk
Serve chilled, but not too freezing cold. You’ll notice more pronounced aromatics and a slightly stronger spiritz if you open the bottle after a quick chill.
Martha's Notes
Like many things we create these days at Martha Stoumen Wines, making a spritzer was born from the combination of our love of experimentation and the reality of a changing climate. During the widespread smoke and fires of the 2020 vintage, I wasn’t comfortable making any of our higher price point age-worthy red wines because I expected they may suffer quality-wise—tasting of smoke taint—or have to be heavily manipulated to remove smoke taint. As a small business, when we look at sustainability we don’t only look at our environment and workers, we also look at our long-term financial sustainability, and how to achieve this while sticking to the promises we’ve made to ourselves and our customers. And the wildfires of 2020 weren’t a new problem, just a bigger one than the fires we’d faced since 2017. In order to remain financially healthy in a world where climate resilience is increasingly important on all fronts, we’d need something more predictable than age-worthy red wines to float our ship and keep our cash flow steady.
I knew a product that could have a flexible base—likely from white grapes, always well farmed though—would be key. Meanwhile, the less pragmatic and creatively indulgent side of me had been dreaming of making a lower alcohol, subtle but elegant spritzer, derived from completely natural and elemental ingredients. After many fun weeks of experimentation in our alchemy lab (our office), Tim and I finalized our foray into the world of wine spritzers, naturally. Try It Out! is an ode to creativity, being your true self, and forging ahead. Cin-cin!
Production Notes
6% alcohol. SO2 at bottling (February 2022): >2 mg/L free, 11 mg/L total.
You’ll see “Carbonated grape wine with natural flavors” on the label. It’s important to us to provide transparency about what goes into our wines so we wanted to provide some context. “Carbonated grape wine with natural flavors” is the classification given to naturally made spritzers like ours by the Federal Trade & Tax Bureau. “Natural flavors” can consist of all sorts of weird things that get added into processed foods, which is why we chose to be radically naked and list out everything that we put into this bubbly bottle of deliciousness.
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