Blend: 100% Viognier
Analysis:
Alcohol: 13.5% | PH: 3.46 | Titratable acidity: 4.48 g/L
Bottling Date: August 2021
Cellaring: 1-3 years
Tasting Notes:
An aromatic, intense and lush Viognier showing floral jasmine and honeysuckle along with ripe apricot, peach, mango, papaya, ripe honeydew melon and vanilla custard with some toasted nuts, caramel and a hint of baking spice. Full bodied and silky textured on the rich palate with balancing crisp acidity and lots of ripe stone fruit, cantaloupe melon, lemon sherbet and floral aromatics with a long finish. Pair with mango chicken curry, roasted lemon chicken or a brown rice Glory Bowl.
– Rhys Pender, Master of Wine
Wine Making:
The 2020 growing season was a rather average one characterized by certain weather events. Spring’s arrival was delayed, followed by bouts of rain in late May and early June which led to slightly lower yields and resultingly high-quality grapes. August added ideal summer heat, ripening the grapes slowly which extended into September. Sunny, clear skies in the fall helped make up for the late start to the season and benefited flavour development in the grapes while cool nights helped retain acidity.
The Viognier grapes for this wine were hand-picked on October 20th and 21st from our Osoyoos vineyard. They were sorted and dropped, whole cluster, into a pneumatic press for gentle extraction. The majority of the juice (75%) was then drained by gravity flow into oak barrels for fermentation while the remaining 25% was vinified in stainless steel tank. Barrel fermentation introduces subtle, savoury oaky undertones and compliments the texture created by the bâtonnage post-ferment. The wine was filtered and stabilized before bottling in August for a total of 9
months in oak.
