2022 Slipper Sippers Nouveau
74% Valdiguié | 18% Petite Sirah | 8% Zinfandel
A portion of profits from the sale of our Slipper Sippers Nouveau benefits La Luz Center.
Produced + Bottled by Las Jaras Wines, Sebastopol CA
Label Art by Sara Rabin
- Description
- Vineyards
- Winemaking
- Technical Data
- Important Shipping Information
A Nouveau is born! Nouveau is the name given to the first wine of the vintage. The style originated out of Beaujolais, just south of Burgundy where they make wines from Gamay Noir using the technique carbonic maceration. In carbonic maceration, open top tanks that have been inertized with carbon dioxide are filled with whole cluster grapes and then sealed for a number of days. Pioneering wine chemist and natural winemaker Jules Chauvet employed the technique in the mid 20st century to make light, fruity and delicious wines
This is essentially how we made this wine! The blend is made up of two lots of old vine Valdiguié, also known as Napa Gamay and a tank where we co-fermented destemmed Petite Sirah and Zinfandel.
The wine is mega delicious. It has a nose full of blackberry and blueberry. There are gobs of red plum and boysenberry, and pomegranate on the super juicy palate. The acidity is really bright and zippy and in the finish there is nice mouth coating tannin that keeps the wine fresh on the palate.
We have been working hard to find more sources of Valdiguié because we love the bright, fruity and spicy tones that it brings to our wines. We lucked into two vineyards in Solano County. Anselmo Vineyard in Suisun Valley comprises 49% of the blend, while Frei Vineyard in Green Valley makes up 25%. These spry old vines vines are 40-70 years old. The Petite Sirah and Zinfandel come from Gary Venturi Vineyard, which is situated in Calpella, just north of Ukiah on an east facing bench. We have been working with this vineyard since the beginning and are very happy to have taken over the whole property and converted it to organic practices. All of the grapes used for this blend are farmed organically.
To make this wine, we employed carbonic maceration for the Valduguié grapes which is a perfect method for that high acid and juicy variety. After 12 days of carbonic maceration at about 55F, we pressed and fermented the pressed wine in a warm tank. Petite Sirah can make a wine that is a bit MASSIVE for our tastes so we employ a couple of different methods to make a nice light and juicy wine. In this case, we destemmed both the petite and the zin to conferment them and then we actually put in 25% of the volume of the tank as direct to press petite sirah rosé, which is a method we like to call reverse saignée. Saignée translates to “bleeding” a tank of its juice, but we add juice to the tank instead to increase the juice to skin ratio on tannic varieties. Once the three lots of wine were nearing dryness, we combined them into one tank to complete fermentation. Two days before bottling we racked the tank and added 15ppm SO2 to protect from any oxygen the wine picked up during bottling. We bottled the wine without filtration.
There must be a person 21+ present at the time of delivery to sign for your wine; it cannot be left without an adult signature. Please review pertinent shipping information here before placing your order: More Shipping Information
Description
A Nouveau is born! Nouveau is the name given to the first wine of the vintage. The style originated out of Beaujolais, just south of Burgundy where they make wines from Gamay Noir using the technique carbonic maceration. In carbonic maceration, open top tanks that have been inertized with carbon dioxide are filled with whole cluster grapes and then sealed for a number of days. Pioneering wine chemist and natural winemaker Jules Chauvet employed the technique in the mid 20st century to make light, fruity and delicious wines
This is essentially how we made this wine! The blend is made up of two lots of old vine Valdiguié, also known as Napa Gamay and a tank where we co-fermented destemmed Petite Sirah and Zinfandel.
The wine is mega delicious. It has a nose full of blackberry and blueberry. There are gobs of red plum and boysenberry, and pomegranate on the super juicy palate. The acidity is really bright and zippy and in the finish there is nice mouth coating tannin that keeps the wine fresh on the palate.
Vineyards
We have been working hard to find more sources of Valdiguié because we love the bright, fruity and spicy tones that it brings to our wines. We lucked into two vineyards in Solano County. Anselmo Vineyard in Suisun Valley comprises 49% of the blend, while Frei Vineyard in Green Valley makes up 25%. These spry old vines vines are 40-70 years old. The Petite Sirah and Zinfandel come from Gary Venturi Vineyard, which is situated in Calpella, just north of Ukiah on an east facing bench. We have been working with this vineyard since the beginning and are very happy to have taken over the whole property and converted it to organic practices. All of the grapes used for this blend are farmed organically.
Winemaking
To make this wine, we employed carbonic maceration for the Valduguié grapes which is a perfect method for that high acid and juicy variety. After 12 days of carbonic maceration at about 55F, we pressed and fermented the pressed wine in a warm tank. Petite Sirah can make a wine that is a bit MASSIVE for our tastes so we employ a couple of different methods to make a nice light and juicy wine. In this case, we destemmed both the petite and the zin to conferment them and then we actually put in 25% of the volume of the tank as direct to press petite sirah rosé, which is a method we like to call reverse saignée. Saignée translates to “bleeding” a tank of its juice, but we add juice to the tank instead to increase the juice to skin ratio on tannic varieties. Once the three lots of wine were nearing dryness, we combined them into one tank to complete fermentation. Two days before bottling we racked the tank and added 15ppm SO2 to protect from any oxygen the wine picked up during bottling. We bottled the wine without filtration.
Technical Data
Important Shipping Information
There must be a person 21+ present at the time of delivery to sign for your wine; it cannot be left without an adult signature. Please review pertinent shipping information here before placing your order: More Shipping Information