Katarina's Blog

Peach, pineapple, pear, flowery yet dry, golden yellow and with a big smooth texture that fills your mouth – that is my way of describing Viognier. The grape is thought to have originated in the northern Rhone valley and it is found in many Rhone wines, both red and white but its big fame and the most exquisite wines made from Viognier are from the appellation Condrieu. It can only contain 100% Viognier and it is a small area of steep hillside vineyards to the east of the river Rhone. That is my style icon for our Viognier.

As time works its magic on the wine in barrel and in bottle you will get incredibly rewarding flavor experiences. This is not for the impatient wine lover! Wine needs time to develop more flavors than what you get from the grape and from fermentation.  Aging wine in oak barrels will add and enhance additional flavor in wine such as butter, cedar, spice, nuts, raisin, and vanilla. We will explore how this happens in todays blog post.

One of the more fun wine tastings to do is a vertical tasting. It means that you use the same wine, i.e. the same varietal from the same vineyard from a number of different years. Invite a group of friends who like wine, they do not have to be experts, neither do you. You are actually about to learn a lot from tasting the same wine from different years and you can do it just for fun and notice the differences and enjoy the wines, or you can go about it more seriously and take notes, discuss and compare.

Excitement is in the air, as well as the smell of harvest. We kicked off our harvest early Friday morning with a crew of 10 people picking. The very first grapes we pick are Chardonnay for our sparkling Blanc de Blancs. And to illustrate how everything has come full circle, we just brought in grapes to start the sparkling process again.

I am very fascinated by the wine you get from blending Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese. These are two very different grapes with very different flavor profiles and instead of clashing they accentuate each other in a beautiful way. Sangiovese has a lighter fruitier strawberry nose which floats above the heavier blackberry and dark cherry of the Cabernet Sauvignon. The depth in the Cabernet with earthiness, cedar and laurel spices are not drowning out the Sangiovese which holds its own with its lighter vanilla spiciness. It reminds me of a duet between a soprano and a bass singer, you can hear each one distinctly since they sing at different frequencies.