Experiment Wines
Change is the essence of life, and Experiment is the way it feeds us
Put simply, the extremely limited suite of wines that comprise our Experiment Series vary dramatically from year to year, each one a poetic answer to a new set of questions posed by the art of winemaking. While we call these ever-changing wines by the name Experiment, they might also be described as an ‘Investigation’ or ‘Exploration.’
Every new Experiment is but a small bite into a much larger fruit, but each one also tells us something new about our property, our grapes and about the larger subject of wine itself. Only the most compelling Experiments are bottled and released to our mailing list collectors. Many lessons gleaned from Experiment have in turn become new winery practice and informed successive vintages of an estate wine, such as Hexameter.
By viewing our estate vineyard as a continuous series of experiments in terroir, or geographic detail, we establish a baseline picture of raw, undiscovered land, noting every detail of geology, aspect and native ecology. Because the Pritchard Hill geography possesses myriad expressions, following identical techniques as a neighboring vineyard will yield completely different results.
“My father, who was also a winemaker, told me early on that great winemaking is constant experimentation. Every vineyard and cellar have their own needs and protocols to maximize the potential of the wines. But there wasn’t any history at OVID to draw on, so we needed to try things in a variety of ways, to understand how to make the very best wines possible.”
Austin Peterson, General Manager & Head
Winemaker
Tools Change. Intuition Doesn't.
To us, technology answers a previous unknown but does not replace observation and experience. How does the vine respond when we do this? What’s going on with that microbial population in the soil and how do our actions influence that? As applied to the craft of winemaking, technology without artistry is soulless, so the goal of any technical experiment is to help unlock the potential of our craft.
