Somewhat yeasty like an aged Champagne, this wine presents with watermelon, strawberry, sweet tarts, and kiwi on the nose. Loads of cranberry, tart white strawberry and lilac flavors. Crisp and bright and at only 12% alcohol I really can drink it for breakfast and keep it flowing all day.
This Gamay lot was picked at 20 Brix and pressed into stainless steel fermenters. Fermentation was natural for 17 days, when it was bottled and continued fermentation in bottle. It was held for two months for conditioning before release.
Most Pét-nats are bottled with just a crown cork, like a beer or cider. Tim bottles this wine on a bottling line (which is also uncommon, most Pét-nats are hand bottled), so he uses a Champagne cork that has the bulb cut off for sealing the bottle followed by a crown cork as well.
2020 Gamay Pét-Nat, #11 by Hollyhock Lodge
$25.00
Pét-nat is short for Pétillant Naturel and is a style of sparkling that is currently super hip, though it is actually an ancient way of making sparkling wine. Essentially to make Péti-nat, you interrupt a fermentation by dropping the temperature and bottling it while it is still fermenting, a technique called Crash-and-Rack. Often cloudy because they are bottled unfiltered, many Pét-nats exhibit funky aromas or are less fruity and more yeasty in nature so can be a surprise if you are expecting to be tasting a sparkling made like Champagne or Cava.
For a successful Pét-nat you need high acid, and you need to bottle at exactly the right time so that the wine completes fermentation in bottle without going crazyand also without being flat. It can be seen as an experimental wine, but in my opinion it needs to be made by an excellent winemaker because it can go off the rails super easily. A good Pét-nat is breakfast bubbles- refreshing and not too complicated.