Variety: Muscat Vert

Vineyard: Nakai

AVA: Russian River Valley

Farming: Organic, Dry Farmed

Harvest Date: September 30 2023

Bottling Date: 22 March 2024

Alc: 11%

Cases: 120

My first time making an individual wine out of Aki Nakai’s Muscat Vert!  I’ve worked with this fruit since 2020, but in all previous harvests the vineyard has yielded so little that it made the most sense to blend the Muscat into the skin contact ‘tell your sister’ cuvée, as a floral component. 2023, with its slow and mellow ripening season, allowed Nakai to produce enough Muscat to keep the fruit separate for its own cuvée.

After we picked it, the fruit was pressed directly, settled overnight, and racked off gross lees to stainless steel for fermentation.  Once fermentation finished, the wine was placed into one small concrete egg and neutral oak barriques to age for 6 months.

Aki calls this fruit Muscat Vert, so I feel it’s right to put this variety on the label.  However, I am unsure as to whether or not it is truly a muscat, as it lacks the distinctive aromatics I normally associate with the variety.  At the same time, it is certainly more aromatic than Colombard or Chardonnay or Chenin, an aspect which I believe is beautifully exemplified in this direct to press expression of the grape.  Whatever the variety is, it is unique among the other wines I produce, and I am very happy to share it as its own cuvée for the first time.

Indigenous yeast fermentation. SO2: 15 ppm total.  No other additions, unfined and unfiltered.

‘the sun egg’ is a book by Swedish author Elsa Beskow, about an elf who finds an orange in the woods.  One of my favorite stories as a child.