2023 Gamay

We introduced Gamay to the ranch in 2017, and it got nailed with frost when the new buds were barely out. No worries, we’ll do better next next year, right? Except that in 2018 a gang of rogue deer broke into the block in the spring and ate every bit of new growth they could get their teeth on. Almost half of the plants in the block died as a result of this one-two punch, so we re-planted new rootstock and scored some fresh budwood from UC Davis. Much to our delight, many of the new clones from Davis showed amazingly strong growth in 2019 and we were pretty stoked – until we discovered that the vines growing with vim and vigor were a nursery mistake, and actually Garganega. I mean, can’t this block of Gamay catch a break? Yeah, nah. So keeping lemons to lemonade and all that, in 2020 we just picked the whole block together and co-fermented the Gamay and Garganega. In 2021, we painstakingly separated the Garganega from the Gamay, fermented it 100% whole cluster, and achieved one lonesome barrel of wine. 2022 was ravaged by frost across the vineyard and we had zero crop of Gamay. In 2023 we had a perfect growing season, no frost, wonderful long days of wintery rain, moderate temperatures through spring and summer and a bountiful crop of Gamay. The grapes were fermented 100% whole cluster with gentle foot treading each day. After a week of fermentation the grapes were pressed and left to finish fermenting in barrel. We wanted to keep this wine light, fresh and youthful so it was bottled after 8 months of aging and saw now SO2 until the moment of bottling.