Spicy, herbaceous, floral and juicy all at the same time- what a nose! This wine feels like being in a cranberry bog holding a blueberry pie with a light wind over a wildflower field. The Pinot-ish notes are the pomegranate and cherry, the backpacker parts are Sandalwood and cumin. The palate is silky with stewed berries, plums, and black peppercorn.
This fruit was mostly de-stemmed and whole berries were fermented in an open top fermenter to allow for oxygen exposure. It was aged in a 600 liter Austrian oak cask and neutral French oak barrels. It was bottled unfined and crossflow filtered for clarity, which means vegan. 113 cases produced.
2021 Ottavino St. Laurent
$42.00
Amazingly, this is the fourth St. Laurent we have featured on Ownroot. So if you have been lucky enough to try a couple, you have had more St. Laurent than most people in this country. Pretty cool.
An Austrian variety brought in just for Dale Ricci of Ricci Vineyards, he planted this block in 2001. It is the only legit planting in the country (someone stole some and planted a block in Oregon, but that’s another story). St. Laurent was described to me as “Pinot Noir gone backpacking” and that makes sense because geneticists have confirmed that one of its parents is indeed Pinot Noir. The other is still unknown, either extinct, undiscovered, or perhaps St. Laurent was a mutation of a Pinot Noir seedling. Also confirmed, it is a parent of about 7 other crosses, the most popular being Zweigelt.