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2019 White Experiment | Six-Bottle Collection
  • 2019 White Experiment | Six-Bottle Collection
2019 White Experiment | Six-Bottle Collection

Six-Bottle Collection 2019 White Experiment

Experiment W6.9
$750.00

The Experimental Story

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.

Tasting Notes

2019 White Experiment W6.9

In most of the previous vintages of this wine, we allowed a portion of Sauvignon Blanc to have some skin contact prior to fermentation. This adds some texture and heft to the wine and can also provide an interesting foil to fruit that went directly to the press. In 2019, we were intrigued to try pressing all of our Sauvignon Blanc directly. Our expectation was that this would give us the cleanest expression of fruit.

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Varietals

  • 25.48% Sauvignon Blanc
  • 13.06% Grenache Blanc
  • 12.02% Roussanne
  • 11.82% Viognier
  • 11.31% Albariño
  • 10.32% Vermentino
  • 10.17% Marsanne
  • 5.82% Picpoul Blanc

Methodology

At harvest, all of our fruit went directly to press and was whole cluster pressed. Fermentation was conducted in a variety of different sized barrels. This blend was assembled in January and the primary lees were stirred twice a month for eight months before bottling. We tasted and made notes during fermentation at blending and just before bottling.

In Conclusion

The conventional wisdom about whole cluster pressing is that it retains more fruit and that the expression is cleaner. We found this to be true. The 2019 White Experiment is vibrant and fresh with ample fruit. There is a nice linearity and cleanliness on the palate as well. It is exciting to see this technique clearly demonstrated - a useful skill as each vintage and its fruit have different demands. This also opens the door for future experimentation with skin contact for the other varietals.