Our Roussanne is sourced from the cool and foggy Vivio Vineyard in Bennett Valley – a hidden gem for cool climate Rhone grapes. The marine influence at this vineyard means the grapes maintain good natural acidity with a long growing season, yet, once the fog layer burns off, the warm Sonoma sun lets the grapes develop intense phenolics and flavors.

2018 was a cool growing season giving us long hang times, lower sugar levels yet phenolicly ripe with robust natural acidity. The result is a wine that has the same richness common in our Roussanne’s but with a more pronounced acidic backbone compared to the 2017.

The grapes were hand harvested during the night. Once at the winery we do a light foot stomping of the grapes and let the skins soak in the juice overnight. This adds color and tannic structure to the wine. The grapes are pressed off the next day and the juice is drained directly into barrels were it undergoes a cool native fermentation which lasted around 3 weeks. The wine then went through a native malolactic fermentation. It aged 15 months in 8 neutral french barrels and 2 new french barrels of very light toast. 6 months before bottling we moved the wine to stainless steel drums to maintain its freshness.