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2010 Spring Release

We have some really interesting new stuff to talk about so let’s get to it. As we mentioned in our last e-mail we are making our first Gewürztraminer, a one ton lot from the ’09 harvest. The fruit was grown in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino County, which is an ideal spot for this varietal. Having always been a big fan of Gewürtz we started out producing this wine more out of personal reasons than commercial, Andrew and I needed another sipping wine as we eke out a meager existence in this perilous trade. We became so thrilled with it that we are going to put some up for sale, winery only, as well as increase this year’s production. The wine is in the Alsatian style, steely, spicy and dry with plenty of easy drinking due to a 13.1% alcohol. To see more detail on the wine go to the notes on the website as you can with all the wines.   Availability will be limited, only 42 cases bottled, especially after Andrew and I have at it. We have priced it at $22.
 
Another sipping wine we are thrilled with is the new 2009 Vin Gris. Everyone who visits and tastes this wine is wowed. The production is different as in the past.   The Vin Gris (grey wine in French) is simply juice that was siphoned off as we destemmed the Pinot Noir at harvest to make it more concentrated. Due to minimum contact with the skins of the grapes the finished wine boasts a salmon colored blush. In the past we treated the juice as we do our Chardonnay i.e. barrel fermented, extended time on the lees, full malo-lactic fermentation. The processing just didn’t stand up to that kind of treatment which reflects my thoughts and sounds counterintuitive, Pinot Noir is more delicate than Chardonnay. Instead of going to barrel as we have in the past, as each lot came in we pumped the juice to a stainless steel tank and ferment it cool and long. Due to the addition of fresh juice to the fermenting tank as new Pinot came to the winery, beautiful layers of complexity were created. We then bottled it in early spring without malo-lactic fermentation in order to capture the fresh fruit flavors. The combination of vineyard quality and the continuous cool stainless fermentation create aromatics of exotic fruits dominate with nuances of grapefruit. This wine is priced at $18. This too was made last year on a small scale so availability will be limited.
 
Not to downplay our classic Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, we are also releasing the 2008 Russian River Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and the Sonoma County Chardonnay. We are tightening up our Chardonnay program, making a greater percentage of single vineyards and just a small amount of the Russian River and the third tier Sonoma County. Tasting our ’08 wines we feel they are at least on par with the fabulous ‘07’s. We are continuing our Sonoma County offering which is priced to fit the current downturn in the market at $27.50. However, a positive thing about this downturn is that other wineries are having to give up some of their best, high quality vineyards and we are able to pick them up. Now there is not a grape for Chasseur coming into the winery that wouldn’t make a single vineyard bottling. With that said, the Russian River Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir come from some of these vineyards so they are technically declassified wines and therefore of superb value.
 

We also mentioned in our last newsletter we will be open for you to visit on June 26th. We noticed that this coincides with a Pinot Days event so in order not to create a conflict for those of you attending that event we have pushed up our open house to June 19. So please join us and taste some yet to be released ’08’s in bottle and some barrel samples of ’09. If you would like to pick up already purchased wine just let us know so we can have it ready.

 
I would also like to remind you we are open to visitors with one change. We are now open only on Fridays by appointment with two tours, one at 10 AM and again at 2 PM. Of course these are subject to change depending how busy we are and excludes autumn which is harvest time. We have a picnic table outside, certainly not a scene out of something from Monet considering the industrial park we are in but there is a little creek next to it.   So when the weather gets nice keep that in mind and bring a lunch. The Vin Gris and Gewürztraminer would certainly be appropriate.
 
One more incidental side note, in order to take care of your administrative needs it would be best to e-mail us with any issues that arise. However, if you do call and leave a message please speak slowly when leaving your phone number.   We have actually lost potential customers who have called saying they want to buy wine but spoke their phone number so quickly it didn’t matter how many times we listened to it on our voice mail we couldn’t make it out. And that’s not good for anybody. 
 
Hunter
 
 
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