It’s hard to believe that this is the eighth vintage of Toquade; time has truly flown by. It evokes a memory from the initial harvest of Toquade in 2006: waiting at dawn for the very first harvesting team. Eight vintages later I still make Toquade from the same organic and dry farmed vineyard planted in 1978 in Yountville, California. I chose this vineyard long ago while working as a Vineyard & Winemaking R&D for Robert Mondavi Winery and traveling the Napa Valley. I realized that Yountville has an ideal micro-climate to grow Sauvignon Blanc. The land near the Napa River provides an especially excellent terroir to showcase the distinct flavor of Sauvignon Blanc.

The vintage of 2013 had 16% more rainfall than that of 2012. It had a dry spring, no frost after bud break, and average crop load. The summer was warm with cool mornings and during the second week of August we experience a heat wave which sped up ripening. We hand harvested the crop on August 20th, which was two weeks earlier than harvest 2012.

We released the flavor inherent in Sauvignon Blanc through fermentation in stainless steel barrels and by aging the wine “sur lie” with weekly batonnage for seven months. “Toquade” was bottled at the end of May 2014. “Toquade” is a pure, unfined expression of the Sauvignon Blanc fruit from a single vineyard in Napa Valley. The nose of “Toquade” has notes of lychee and guava, and the mouth feel a crisp start with a creamy mid-palate and a long, fruit forward finish. “Toquade” is delicious by itself and can be also paired with a variety of foods: everything from seafood, sushi and bruschetta to various cheeses and South East Asian dishes such as curries.

– Haley Schamdelmier