Thanksgiving week was a short one but lots was accomplished in the cellar.
Sabrevois is our third largest red wine grape planting, and we use it to make Rockets Glare Rosé. But Sabrevois is a funny grape. It is really nice when it comes in during harvest, and then it is like a two-year-old in that it throws lots of temper tantrums. Fortunately, it has calmed down and it smells and tastes really nice. We started out thinking we could make a nice dry red wine with Sabrevois and while it wasn’t bad, we decided that Sabrevois makes a better rosé than a red wine.
We racked the Marquette and Frontenac after their malo-lactic conversion was finished. These wines will go into barrels soon. The aromas and mouth-feel of these wines are right on and we’re hopeful that some barrel aging will produce some outstanding wine.
The cellar team bottled the 2015 Iowa Marquette Rosé on Tuesday. It has a great nose with plum, cherry, and blackberry with cinnamon as part of its long finish. It will be a nice dry rosé.
We have started cold stabilization of the Candleglow® White and plan to bottle it at the beginning of 2016. We will begin cold stabilization of the Star Spangled White® next week and will bottle this wine also in early January.
Jonita, our Cellar Specialist, enjoyed a bottle of Oskyfizzante® Cranberry and a bottle of 2015 Iowa Nouveau for Thanksgiving. When asked what she was making for Thanksgiving, she said,
The wine!”
