2015 Estate Dessert Gewürztraminer, Russian River Valley
Picked cold between midnight and 4:30 and rushed to the freezer before sunrise, our dessert Gewurztraminer is processed in the ice-wine style.
This sweet dessert wine is packed full of rich, ripe stone fruit and perfumed honey. The opulent mouthfeel begs for yet another sip and finishes long and juicy. We will watch this wine continue to devolope in the bottle over the next 3-5 years.
Winemaker Notes: Picked cold between midnight and 4:30 and rushed to the freezer before sunrise, we freeze these tiny while clusters for at least 25 days. Then we pull out 20% of the grape each day over the course of a week and press very hard. As we press we create heat and as the heat slowly thaws the frozen grape, tiny droplets of pure sugar nectar fall out of the press and into the basin below. We capture the nectar and collect it into a tank where we coax the struggling yeast to begin fermentation. Once underway we manage the fermentation very closely and ferment slowly over the next month. Add approximately 11% alcohol these can no longer consume any of the residual sugar and we drop the temperature of the tank to 30° where the wine will cold stabilize. We sterile filter the wine and bottle as soon as possible in order to preserve freshness that is found in every bottle of our dessert give her to m in order to preserve freshness that is found in every bottle of our dessert Gewurzt.
Food Pairing: Fresh-cut peach or pair drizzled over real vanilla ice cream
Owner/Winemaker Randy Pitts calls in to share some thoughts on this special dessert wine.
Specs
Russian River Gewürztraminer: Planted by my family in 1976, our mature four acres of cane-pruned gewürztraminer fruit was sold to a local winery for over 25 years. We craft three unique styles of Estate Gewürztraminer from approximately 10 tons annually.
Style: Dessert
Appellation: Russian River Valley
Varietal: Gewurztraminer
Alcohol: 11.5%
Bottled: 2016-01-26
Drinkable: Now till 2022
Harvest Date: 2015-09-21
Harvest Brix: 23.5°
Residual Sugar: 14.4 g/L
Production: 165 cases grown, produced and bottled.
Specs
Russian River Gewürztraminer: Planted by my family in 1976, our mature four acres of cane-pruned gewürztraminer fruit was sold to a local winery for over 25 years. We craft three unique styles of Estate Gewürztraminer from approximately 10 tons annually.
Style: Dessert
Appellation: Russian River Valley
Varietal: Gewurztraminer
Alcohol: 11.5%
Bottled: 2016-01-26
Drinkable: Now till 2022
Harvest Date: 2015-09-21
Harvest Brix: 23.5°
Residual Sugar: 14.4 g/L
Production: 165 cases grown, produced and bottled.
Vendor Details
Harvest Moon Estate & Winery
Owners:
The Pitts Family
Founded:
2000
Location:
Santa Rosa, CA
The Harvest Moon: the moon at and about the period of fullness that is nearest to the autumnal equinox. In the legend of the Harvest moon, it is said that all full moons have their own special characteristics based primarily on the whereabouts of the ecliptic in the sky at the time of year that these moons are visible.
Harvest Moon Estate and Winery was founded on growing, producing and bottling world-class Russian River Valley wine in a balanced, elegant style. Our premise is that Russian River Valley Zinfandel can be just as layered and complex as any Pinot Noir or Bordeaux variety in the world and receive the same respect. The Pitts family has grown quality grapes in the Russian River Valley since 1976. In 2000, son Randy reverse migrated from San Francisco back to Sonoma County to assume the farming responsibilities at the family's modest nine-acre ranch. In conjunction with lessons on farming by his Dad and a few viticulture/enology courses at the local junior college, Randy made a barrel of homemade Zinfandel off the ranch's back block which turned out exceptionally tasty. Quickly concluding that properly farmed and judiciously fermented, Zinfandel has great capabilities of being California's own wine nobility. The growers-turned winemakers birthed their inaugural vintage in 2002 and look forward to making their Zinprint on the winescene for decades to come.
In addition to growing Zinfandel, Harvest Moon also hand crafts small amounts of Russian River Valley Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir and Dry Creek Cabernet Sauvignon.
