2021 Winemaker's Red

2023 Great Northwest Wine Competition - Gold, Best of Class (94)

Throughout harvest, Winemaker Richard Batchelor worked closely with local growers and visited each vineyard to taste for maturity and ripeness to determine the precise moment to pick the fruit. Grapes were hand-harvested during the cool hours of the morning to preserve bright fruit notes. Sourced from our collection of vineyards throughout Washington, each lot underwent a five day pre-fermentation cold maceration for color and fruit extraction. The fruit was kept separate by varietal and warmed up to begin the native yeast fermentation. Once pressed, these wines were blended together in similar lots for style and underwent Malolactic fermentation in tanks containing 40% new French Oak staves. At such time, the wines were slowly micro-oxygenated to enhance the softening of the tannins before the wine was blended. Aged on oak in tanks for 11 months.