Ben – In 2017 we thought we should make Rose. We got a vineyard called Tanner out in the Foothills. It is like the surface of the sun. It is so hot. It is vertically planted. It would be a nightmare to pick. We thought we would make a Provence style rose. We got Mourvèdre and Carignan. The pick was on the same day. We drove out and dropped the bins off at the vineyard and then we went out for drinks with friends. The pick was supposed to be at 3 or 4 and we got drunk and missed the pick. We overslept the call by an hour.
Matt – We got everything to the winery. We threw it right into the press and it was clear when it came out. We left a drum to the side and thought, let’s make sparkling. In 2018 we put it down for tirage.
Ben – We hand bottled it and hand capped it and laid it into picking bins. We had maybe 50 cases.
Matt – Then we got a call from the warehouse manager that there were a lot of fruit flies in our bin. So it turned out the hand pull wasn’t strong enough so we had to do an early dosage.
Ben – It tasted good, so we just had to handle it. We had to clean the bottles, pop the tops, top them again and cap them again. So we got them capped back up and put them back in the warehouse for two more years. We ended up with 27 cases all in and put it back away. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with it. We just started tasting it again and it is so good. It has pressure and elegance.