J. Lohr Wildflower Valdiguie Red Blend

2019 Vintage- Valdiguié is a very large-berried, late maturing variety; it requires vigilance from our vineyard crew to prune to only one bud per spur to aid ripening. In the cellar, the goal is to preserve Valdiguié’s wonderful natural acidity and fresh fruit character. We use two different fermentation techniques to achieve this. On our last pick of 2019, we hand-harvested roughly one-quarter of the fruit and put those whole clusters directly into the fermentation tanks for ‘carbonic maceration’ – no crushing or punching down for the first two weeks. The balance of the fruit went through the more conventional technique of gently de-stemming, pumping over, and extracting with a fairly short, warm fermentation.