This wine is an homage to Annie Londonderry, a Latvian immigrant to the United States, who in 1894 became the first woman to bicycle around the world. She was a revolutionary for her time, an entrepreneur, a voracious traveler, and a mother of three. At 5 feet, 3 inches, and 100 pounds, Annie rode her 42-pound Columbia women’s bike around the world with only three days of prior cycling experience. Upon returning, she wrote, “I am a journalist and a ‘new woman if that term means that I believe I can do anything that any man can do.” She ultimately won a wager for her trip around the world of $10,000, equivalent to 3 years of an average man’s salary.

This wine showcases the expansive nature of the Russian River Valley without giving the whole of the wine over to power and alcohol. I don’t use the saignée method to concentrate color. I want to highlight the natural tension in the skin and pulp this valley can provide when picked with a balanced approach to both ripeness and acidity.

The nose enters with a deep black cherry and raspberry compote. The rich berries blend on the palate with a hint of bay leaf, ground cardamom, and a delicate bouquet of violets. The finish carries on for at least a minute like a reduced cherry glaze being dripped over suckling pork.

“In winemaking, you can adjust many features during wine production to change the overall profile of the wine. I try to keep the first release from a site as true to traditional California winemaking as possible. I want to create a foundational bottle that is purely dedicated to the region. That means limited intervention, two weeks of open-top fermentation using all destemmed berries, no use of the color heightening technique of saignee, and nice long aging in barrel. I only use oak to enhance the structure and not to change the flavor, so it’s subtle on this wine at only 15% new oak. I’m very pleased with how the aromas on this wine have really captured the essence of this region and continue to evolve beautifully in the bottle.” - Kira Ballotta