NEW RELEASE: 2020 SAPERAVI
"WINETALK" by WINEMAKER, KATEY LARWOOD
When you first bring saperavi fruit into the cellar, you quickly learn that it stains...everything. This is a dark grape. Saperavi is one of two teinturier varieties in the world, meaning the pulp is pigmented yielding a truly opaque wine. And the color is only one of the few things that makes this variety interesting to work with, from a winemaking perspective. During harvest, every saperavi ferment makes the entire cellar smell like brambly blackberry pie, a scent that can wake up even the sleepiest of interns!
Once the 2020 saperavi completed fermentation, it sat on its lees for 9 months in a mixture of French and American oak barrels to further develop. Typically, with this grape a longer period in barrel is optimal to help smooth out tannin and integrate the acid to the wood and fruit. But in 2020, alcohols were higher than a traditional FLX harvest, so the higher alcohol helped round out the wines earlier in their time in barrel.
The wine is ultimately dense but also fresh, with muscular tannin, brambly fresh fruit, and focused and precise acidity. Just watch out for that white shirt!
- Katey Larwood, Winemaker
JOIN THE CLUB!
Join our wine club and get first access and exclusive offerings of our limited production wines. In addition to savings on ever wine purchase, you'll enjoy club benefits like being in the coolest wine club, telling people you're in the coolest wine club, thinking about being in the the coolest wine club, and falling to sleep knowing you're in the coolest wine club.
2020 SAPERAVI
If you love a big, bold red, this is your wine!
So lavish, so tenebrous, so inky that light doesn’t penetrate this rugged, sable Saperavi in the goblet. An elaborate and spirited aroma is packed with robust essences of char-grilled steak, beef broth, tart black currant, and the barest hint of graphite. A palate so rich with deep, dark fruit and meaty aspects features poached plums, blackberries and black currants with a firm, succinct grip of oak and tannin for a satisfying, long-lasting finish that is sure to please.
261 Cases Available
$28.99/bottle
club price: $24.64/bottle
THE REMARKABLE 2020 VINTAGE
2020 was a winemaker's dream, a vintage of idyllic growing conditions in the Finger Lakes. Expect to see extremely high quality wines that show concentration, complexity, silky tannins, and the varietal specificity for which we are known.
During the growing season we experienced gorgeous warm days and heat in timely doses. The heat produced the right amount of moisture stress (read lack of rain) to keep the fruit slightly dehydrated and the consequent flavor development of the skins and pulp lent a complexity to the juices that are playing out in the wines.
Our winemakers, Phil and Lauren, crafted truly remarkable wines that will show well early, but will have the depth of character to age gracefully.
