Product Description:

Winery Tasting Notes
"We are exceedingly proud of this new wine from the Sierra Foothills: the 2013 Grenache Blanc from the Monarch Mine vineyard, about 3000 feet up in the Sierras. This is a super-rare varietal—only 75 acres grown in California!—and we managed to get some of the best grapes. With only 192 cases made, it's virtually gone on release. Grenache Blanc is a minerally, flavor-filled wine similar in texture to Chardonnay but with a spicy flavor profile and crisp acidity. Thick, viscous texture and great structure with an extremely smooth, lush mouthfeel, balanced by crisp acidity. Flavors of pear, stone fruit, minerals, and a spicy, almost all-spice finish."

Production
The long ripening days and cool nights of the 2013 vintage produced perfectly balanced fruit, with a minerality and acid structure that we loved from the beginning. We picked the fruit early in the morning, to keep the fruit cold, and drove as quickly as possible to the winery for pressing. At the winery, we gently pressed the fruit for over two hours in order to intensify the fruit flavors without extracting any harsh seed tannin.

After pressing, the juice was allowed to settle prior to being racked into a small stainless steel tank. After almost five days, the fermentation began and we transferred 1/4 of the wine to 1-year-old French oak barrels for barrel fermentation. The barrel fermented wines showed great complexity and developed a thick, velvety texture. The remainder of the wine was fermented in tank, to keep the fresh fruit flavors untouched by oak. After fermentation was complete, we finished aging in a stainless steel tank until bottling the wine in mid-April.