Description
Wine Creek Ranch’s terroir in the Dry Creek Valley shares many similarities with the Southern Rhône. For this reason, more than two decades ago we planted Grenache clones that trace their lineage to Château Beaucastel. WINEMAKING NOTES Our goal is always to achieve optimal ripeness at the lowest sugar, i.e. potential alcohol, possible. We strive to balance this varietys tendency towards firm tannins by following a more Burgundian winemaking approach focused on extremely gentle handling and slow, controlled extraction… really more of an infusion. Partial whole-cluster fermentation (15%-20%) also helps balance tannins and adds high-toned red fruit, while gentle basket-pressing further optimizes overall tannin quality. Mirroring the Southern Rhône wine making tradition, we move to the wine to traditional French oak Foudres (600 and 900-gallon casks) for the second half of its aging to best capture and preserve Grenaches prized strawberry aromatics. THE WINE The wine is a very pretty and day bright ruby red that fades to a polished pink rim. On the nose there is prominent strawberry and rhubarb with hints of dried orange peel and Italian herbs. In the mouth it is medium bodied with the signature ground cinnamon of grenache plus some green tobacco leaf wrapped around juicy strawberries. The wine is both dry and juicy at the same time with medium tannins that fade to red fruits covered in milk chocolate.
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