On the nose this wine has cracked black pepper, violets and dark fruits like fig and plums. I get Earl Grey tea, strawberries, blueberries, lavender and black cherry cola.
The layers of spice and delicate fruit make me want to spend a lot of time exploring this wine and appreciating its unique nuances.
The fascinating thing about how this was made is that it was de-stemmed and then they added 20% of the stems back in. I have to talk to them more about why this is. They also use plastic bags. So we have a lot to talk about at our tasting with this one!
2019 March St. Laurent
$32.00
Maura worked with Tyler Ricci at Miner ages ago. His family owns Ricci Vineyard, in the Carneros region of Sonoma County. His family planted the first and only St. Laurent in California after traveling to Austria and loving it. Since Maura also loves Austrian wines, she was intrigued.
St. Laurent is Austrian, but also was grown ages ago in Bordeaux and was names for a festival that takes place right around the time that the fruit sees verasion, or changes from white to red fruit. It is considered a conundrum of a grape because it has power and spice like a Rhone Valley red (Grenache, maybe, or Syrah even) and also the elegance and delicate notes of a Burgundian Pinot Noir.