Nouveau-style wine originated in the Beaujolais region of France as a way to celebrate the end of a successful harvest. Produced and bottled in the same year the grapes were harvested, it was traditionally released on the third Thursday of November as a reward for the hard work put into the vintage. Revolution embraces the Nouveau tradition with the yearly release of this whole-cluster carbonic wine just in time to grace your Thanksgiving table!
Vineyard Notes: The Walkers have been growing grapes in El Dorado County since the 1930’s. Their 220 acre property, sitting at 2100 ft of elevation, is planted to Zinfandel, Chardonnay, Barbera & Petite Sirah. The 2020 Zinfandel was sourced from their back vineyard, where the head-trained Zinfandel vines were planted in the 1970’s & are clones of the original plantings from the 30’s, grafted on St George rootstock. The vineyard soil is a coarse loam with lots of sand.
Cellar Notes: 2.5 tons of grapes were picked overnight & were in the winery by 8 am. The grape clusters were dumped without processing into macrobins with dry ice, covered with a layer of CO2 to initiate carbonic maceration & sealed with plastic. After four weeks in the bins (9/4/20), regularly topped with CO2, the juice had fermented down to an average of five brix. At that point we foot-treaded all three bins & let native yeasts finish the alcoholic fermentation, with punchdowns & foot-treadings three times daily until dryness, on 9/7/20. The wine was pressed gently to tank. Before bottling the wine was racked twice to remove it from any particulates. The wine was both bottled & kegged with no filtration & with a minimal sulphur addition.
Tasting Notes: The aromas are quite playful, with cherry, strawberry, green peppercorn & banana. The palate is dense with fruits, structured tannins & saline & green herb notes.