This is one of the cooler parts of owning a winery. We just started our 2005 vintage blending trials.
In 2004 (our first official harvest), we didn’t have enough cab and merlot to bottle straight varietals (besides, no one is buying Merlot these days anyway, thanks to Paul Giamatti). So we acted like we knew what we were doing and blended the Cab and Merlot together, along with a smidge of our neighbor’s Cab Franc.
We decided to call it Altitude, if for no other reason than all the good names were already taken.
The 2004 release was more of a “right-bank” Bordeaux – 75% Merlot, 20% Cab Sauv and 5% Cab Franc.
And it’s become our best selling wine.
So, not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, it looks like we’ll be bottling a Bordeaux blend for the rest of our lives – which is actually a lot of fun.
This past weekend, we swept the lab equipment off the island in the farmhouse kitchen and set up rows of glasses. We have been doing fining trials as well, so we had a lot to choose from with both our 2005 Cab and Merlot (in an effort to keep costs in line we also used French and American oak, so it’s going to get interesting!).
The early results look more like a 50-50 blend this year, but 50-50 is like kissing your sister, so we’ll have to tweak things a little (besides – you can’t say you have a “middle bank” Bordeaux – it just doesn’t sound right…).
Posted by desertmoon 