2011 “Turn in the Road” Sauvignon Blanc – Lake County, Big ValleyRegion  

I’m going to give you all the full run down on this wine, from the winemaking to the aging and all the way to the bottle.

Harvested on the 2nd of October the grapes came into the winery at close to freezing after being harvested at night.  In the past I’ve whole cluster pressed our SB right to tank and got things rolling but this year I decided to do something a little different.  We decided to de-stem and crush the SB this year, done more for red wines then white wines, and let the SB sit on the skins over night in our same half ton picking bins.  The next day we pressed it to tank and started fermentation.  Fermentation lasted nearly 50 days (about a half a degree brix/day THIS IS VERY SLOW, and fantastic for the wine).  We then aged the SB in tank on it’s lees stirring bi-weekly.  The wine was bottled un-filtered and un-fined on March 30th and we’ll soon be releasing it to you.

Tasting Notes: The aromas on this wine are very strong in honey dew/melon, with pear and lemon zest.  The mouthfeel is stellar, rich and textured, the extra skin contact added a fantastic element of structure and viscosity without overpowering the natural acidity.