DANCING CROW OLD STAKE 1901 VINEYARD 2018
Kelsey Bench; Lake County
Die Trauben für diesen Wein stammen aus dem Old Stake 1901 Vineyard, der 1901 und somit vor der Prohibition gepflanzt wurde. Zu finden sind dort 24 verschiedene Rebsorten, bsp. Zinfandel, Alicante Bouschet, Cinsault, Touriga Nacional, Syrah, Primitivo, Counoise und auch einige weiße Sorten. Die Trauben werden all gemeinsam gelesen und gemeinsam vergoren wie bei einem Gemischten Satz. Der Ausbau erfolgt für 9 Monate in französischen Barriques, bei der Abfüllung wird auf Schönung und Filtration verzichtet. 14,5 % vol.
- Notizen am Rücketikett: „Our old Stake 1901 Vineyard tells a story rooted in over a century of Lake County viticultural history. Planted in the year 1901, this unique offering is a rare Old World „Field Blend“ originating from a mix of California red grape heritage varieties. For generations these grapes have been grown, harvested and co-fermented together from the iron-rich soils of the Kelsey Bench AVA. This fully textured, yet elegant wine provides generous plum, Mission fig and cocoa flavors with a note of lavender on the finish.“
- Blog-Einträge des Weingutes: "In many wineries, especially larger ones, the tasks of the vineyard and those of winemaking are kept quite separate, except at harvest time, but in the case of Dancing Crow, our husband and wife winemaking team of David and Katharine DeSante are closely involved in both activities.
The day-to-day management of our vineyards in Lake County is taken care of by David Weiss and his team at Bella Vista Farming, but the DeSantes are on the ground regularly. This is especially important at Old Stake because we’re still discovering what has actually been planted there since the first vines went into the ground in 1901. With the first vintage in 2018, we had identified just over 10 grape varieties, now we’re over 24 and counting! It is David and Katharine who walk the rows and figure out what’s what.
Harvest is always a special time – the culmination of seasons of work by the vineyard team and the grapes themselves. At our Old Stake 1901 Vineyard near Kelseyville in Lake County, over 20 different varieties are picked and then fermented together, so the harvest literally becomes the blend of each vintage.
This is not how most wines are made, or grown, nowadays. Each variety is typically given in its own vineyard, or vineyard block, picked separately, and taken to the winery where it is processed and fermented as its own lot. The winemakers then blend these different elements together to make the finished wine. This is often the case even when the wine is labelled as a single varietal like Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel or Pinot Noir. Even this varietal labelling is recently new, and was pioneered by the California wine industry in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies.
So our Old Stake 1901 wine is a step back into history, to a time when growers interplanted several different grape varieties in a single vineyard and the resulting wine was known as a field blend. Of course, not all the vineyards were quite as diverse as Old Stake with its 20+ varieties. Zinfandel is the dominant grape, around 60%, followed by Syrah, Alicante Bouschet, Touriga Nacional, Cinsault, Primitivo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Counoise and a host of others, some of which we are still discovering, including a few white grape vines!
Following the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, when you co-ferment several varieties you get a different interaction and a more complex outcome than fermenting separately and blending later. All this adding up to a wine unlike any other and one that we are very happy and excited to be growing and making."