The first wine that I ever made was from these vines 10 vintages ago. The wine turned out to be quite tasty but more importantly these grapes are the reason that I became hooked on winemaking. A month ago I was looking at the Merlot and Cab when I walked by and was just in awe and these beautiful little clusters and decided to produce a 2008 Chardonnay. I am very excited to be finally making a commercial wine from these grapes this year and have started off conservatively with 4.5 tons which should yield about 250 cases of wine. The grapes arrived on September 5, 2008 and numbers were as follows- Brix 24.1 TA .86 Ph 3.3. It has been fermenting for 13 days now in tank and has wonderful pineapple aromas and flavors. I am going to age 70% of the wine in French Oak Barrels and am going to put it through malolactic fermentation (for mouthfeel and complexity.) The other 30% will remain in tank to retain the wonderful tropical fruit that it is expressing.Thiswine will be released July of 2009.
On September 5, 2008 we received these grapes at our facility and proceeded to pitch fork and shovel for what seemed like days. The aromas and flavors of the grapes had tons of grapefruit and passion fruit with a touch of green tomato bush. It was very similar to Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand, so needless to say we are ecstatic. We did a 36 hour cold settling and than inoculated the juice. This 800 gallons of Sauvignon Blanc been fermenting for 12 days and I am definitely getting citrus and tropical flavors with a touch of minerality.
The last couple of years I have been making wine in a facility 2 blocks from the beach and decided to name the brand "Blue Coast." I have just recently released 2 wines under this label, a 2005 Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah and a 2006 Grenache from Valle de Guadelupe, Baja. In March of 2009, we will be releasing a 2006 Sonoma County Meritage and and a 2008 Lake County Sauvignon Blanc. - Chris -
Healdsburg, Dry Creek Valley, California, United States
The vineyard was purchased 18 years ago by the Van Alyea family and at that time was planted with Merlot, Chardonnay, and Zinfandel. All of the fruit was produced into wine at the the Lambert Bridge Winery for many years where the grapes/wine won many accolades especially with the Merlot. When the Van Alyea's purchased the land they did many things to improve the vines including putting in a drip system and replanting nearly the whole vineyard. They began selling the Merlot and Chardonnay to Kendall Jackson and soon there after to Clos du Bois. In 2001 they planted 4 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and in 2004/5 they planted 6 acres of Petite Sirah. More recently there was a planting of about 700 vines of Malbec and 350 of Petite Verdot. If you have any questions or would like to try some wines made from these grapes,
Please contact- ccvwines@gmail.com
