2022 FORAGER Sauvignon Blanc, Sonoma
89 Points - "Very good!”
- Wine Enthusiast Magazine
Our first foray into crisp and zippy Sauvignon Blanc! Old vines in the Dry Creek Valley AVA gave us some superb fruit to work with, pair it with anything from the ocean or spicy cuisines and you are set.
- FORAGER Sauvignon Blanc illustrates that careful, experienced growing, selection, blending and maturation of Sauvignon Blanc grown in a superb Sonoma location can deliver delicious flavor and interest.
- Excellent low-yielding site, classic low-impact winemaking techniques and extended lees contact deliver high quality & style.
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Wine Specs
Vintage
2022
Varietal
Sauvignon Blanc
Appellation
Sonoma County
Alcohol %
13.2
Wine Profile
Vineyard Notes
The intensity of the 2022 Sauvignon Blanc comes from an older site grown in the Dry Creek Valley AVA, a terrific spot for exemplary Sauvignon Blanc. This vineyard has a sandy loam soil and gets all the sunshine and daytime warmth needed to drive richness and depth, yet at night it gets chilly and that helps the vines settle down and contributes a bright crispness to the wine. The soils in this low yielding, cool site is gravelly reddish clay loam. Each clone provided different aromas, flavors & structure and the final blend was built by tinkering with lots in the cellar.
Production Notes
Vintage 2022 offered us an amazing growing season. The winter was wet and windy and after March there was pretty much no precipitation. We were able to focus on fine tuning, rather than wholesale fixing, the vineyard. Summer was a breeze: not too hot, not too cold and the grapes were picked well before the late October rains. Clusters ended up being perfectly ripened, the size of the crop was decent, and quality very high. In short, a great vintage which displays great aromas and texture.
Winemaker Notes
To maintain freshness, we picked in the cool evening of September 10, and to develop mouthfeel the compact bunches were pressed and given lots of skin contact. When the white must warmed up 72 hours later fermentation started. A few days later we dropped temperature several degrees every day until we got to 42F degrees. So the fermentation was very long and very slow and very cold. This enhances aromatics dramatically. Once it fermented dry it was left on yeast lees for five months to accentuate texture. Such a luxury! I decided not to give it any time on oak to showcase its purity and texture without a hunk of 2x4’s messing things up. Delicious honeydew melon aromas with lime zest hints, this wine is called FORAGER to illustrate how growing, gathering & judiciously crafting small lots of can deliver a killer glass of complex, refreshing Sauvignon Blanc.