Blend: 100% Viognier
Analysis:
Alcohol: 13.5% | PH: 3.53 | Titratable acidity: 4.6 g/L
Bottling Date: August 2020
Cellaring: 1-3 years
Tasting Notes:
Classic aromatic scents of jasmine and honeysuckle lead to rich peach, mango, pineapple and cantaloupe melon with some fresh basil notes. The palate is dry and full-bodied yet shows textbook BC restraint and crispness of acidity, the papaya and nectarine richness livened up with lime, lemon, orange oil, cilantro and mineral notes on the long finish. Pair with a chicken tagine with preserved lemon or mixed grilled BC seafood with a stone fruit
and basil salsa.
– Rhys Pender, Master of Wine
Wine Making:
Spring arrived early in 2019, allowing for early and even bud break, flowering and fruit set. This was followed by a warm, yet more moderate summer. The summer heat was enough to produce nicely concentrated levels of ripeness in the grapes and the cool autumn provided conditions for acidity to be retained in the fruit as well, providing the wine with a lively freshness to balance the ripe fruit notes.
The majority of our Viognier grapes were handpicked on October 16th from our Osoyoos vineyard. They were sorted and dropped whole cluster into a pneumatic press for gentle extraction. Most of the juice was then drained by gravity flow into a mix of oak puncheons and barrels for fermentation. Barrel fermentation contributes savoury and subtle oaky undertones with rich, round texture from the bâtonnage done post-ferment. The remainder of the juice (18%) was fermented in stainless steel tank and underwent malolactic conversion before being transferred into barrel for micro-oxygenation. After fermentation, the Viognier wine spent 8-and-a-half months in oak barrels. The wine was later blended, filtered, and stabilized before bottling.
