Rosé 2022

Production

We were once again very fortunate in that 2022 was a very good year that provided not only an abundant crop but fully ripe and flavorful fruit with high sugar levels reminiscent of the excellent 2019 vintage. 

There are several ways to make a rosé. One way is to directly press red grapes immediately upon harvesting, (same as we would when working with our white grapes to make our Sauvignon Blanc’s and Sauvignon Gris’) and then fermenting that juice as a white wine (often called “intentional” rose’). A second way is, once whole red grapes are put into a fermenter to make red wines, a portion of juice will be “bled off” (saignée) to concentrate the reds and then to use that juice for rosé. A third way is to just blend a red and a white wine together. For our 2022 Rosé we have used two of these methods. We direct-pressed some of our Cabernet Franc, which constitutes 67% of the final blend, and used juice from saignée for the other 33%. 

The lightly colored juice obtained from the two methods was fermented separately. This was by long, cool fermentations at about 58°F in stainless steel tanks, aged 5-6 months on yeast sediment (lees) and occasionally stirred, in tank, with these lees to help develop more fullness and body in the wine. In the early Spring, the young wines were evaluated for taste, structure and character, then the proportions of each to be blended for the final wine were determined through tasting and blending trials. This wine was assembled and bottled in April 2023.