2013 BY Unrefined Rose
| Vintage: | 2013 |
| Varietal Composition: | |
| 50% | Cabernet Franc |
| 50% | Merlot |
| Harvest Date: | September 22-October 16, 2013 |
| Sugar: | 21.2 avg brix |
| Acid: | 8.55 g/l |
| PH: | 3.60 |
| Aging: | Virginia Oak - 3.5 months |
| Barrel Aging: | |
| 3.5 months | |
| 100% | Neutral Virginia Oak |
| Ageability: | drink now |
| Fermentation: | barrel |
| Bottling Date: | February 16, 2014 |
| Residual Sugar: | 0 |
| Alcohol %: | 11.5 |
A pale pink color that is both stunning and elegant. The wine is deeply aromatic with intoxicating rhubarb, flower, mineral and strawberry notes. The palate is fresh and lean with bright berry fruit and minerality leading to a medium finish. Light, fresh and simply a pleasure to drink on a hot summers day. Drink now.
The fruit came from the Road block of Nevaeh Vineyard and Front Royal. The Cabernet Franc was from the Road Block of Nevaeh which is the flattest part of our vineyards and dominated by heavy red clay (Penn Silt Loam) creating lighter more fruit driven wines. We also bled off some of the juice from the Merlot and Syrah juice with a little more richness and complexity. The Cabernet Franc from this block tends to be a bit lighter and more elegant with brighter characters lending itself well to Rose. The Merlot was from the vineyard we source from just outside Front Royal in the Shenandoah AVA. It is a west facing steep slope in the mountains just outside Front Royal. The stony and steep soils allow for some minerality to come into the fruit while the cooler mountainside creates great Merlot for Rose, Sauvignon Blanc and Petit Manseng with stunning austerity, mineral, and lively but ripe fruit. Harvest Conditions: The 2013 vintage will often be remembered as the year that took 5 off the end of every winemaker’s life span. In the end, it all came together with a brilliant harvest time, but leading up was constantly scary. The wines show great vibrancy and finesse with the early ripeners shining like Chardonnay and Merlot. There was some struggle with the later ripeners getting them fully mature. The season started very late with a very cold and wet spring. We did not see bud break until the start of May which is unheard of. Everyone thought it was a blessing in disguise and that at least we wouldn’t have to worry about frost. We were wrong. We had the latest frost I remember on May 14th and while it did not do tons of damage, it did weaken the vines going into the season. The rest of the summer season we unseasonally wet and cool so we knew we would have trouble ripening the late riperners and had to get all the canopies wide open and drop fruit. In the end dropping fruit came back to bite us as the frost and cold weather forced the vines to start aborting some fruit as well. It also forced the worse animal damage (birds, raccoons, etc.) that we have seen because their nature food sources in the forests were wiped out from the tough year. The sun came out close to the end of August and stayed through the picking season which was great. It allowed us to be patient and harvest some superb fruit with incredible balance. I the end we quite like what we have from 2013, but the downfall is it is the smallest harvest on record, by far.
The 2013 Rose is a little more traditional than the 2012 but was still fermented and aged in neutral oak but only for 3.5 months. The grapes were whole cluster pressed to minimize the extraction of color this year leading to a more pale and pretty wine. The juice was pressed directly into barrel where it was inoculated and allowed to ferment cool, never getting beyond 62 degrees F. The wine was first racked in January following harvest when the two components were blended and prepared for bottling. While in barrel we performed batonage every other week. The wine was cold and protein stabilized and then filtered. Bottled February 2014.
Although most of our wines are made to be with food, this one is great just chilling out by the pool with friends or as an aperitif. It is also a pleasure with some simple salads and an easy going vegetarian grill out.
85 cases