2019 Sauvignon Blanc, Obi Label
2019
Sauvignon Blanc
Sonoma County, California
That small amount combines with carbohydrates in the wine to form a harmless and inert salt, sulfate, leaving the wine low in both histamine and sulfites, making it more delicious and healthy — Clean Wine®.
$32 each
Description
This barrel fermented Sauvignon Blanc with Obi's label (the winery dog) is a style that was originally called Fumé Blanc, by it's first winemaker, Robert Mondavi. It has all the tropical fruit character of tank fermented SB but with a lower acid level. This makes it softer and more fruit forward. It pairs with salads and luncheon faire. We made only a few barrels of this familiar yet different SB. It is PJ's favorite. Before we put the Obi label on it we called it PJ's SB.
Wine Details
Wine selected from the best tasting barrels of individual lots
Sonoma County
Sonoma Valley
2019
White Wine
Sauvignon Blanc
100% Sauvignon Blanc.
750mL
The 2019 Vintage was an excellent, the eighth good harvest in a row. Climate change is shortening our winters, so bud break and bloom are early, making harvest earlier, but climate change, so far, is not making our summers warmer. This is because of the moderating effect of the cold Pacific Ocean, about 50 miles west of Sonoma Valley.
Jon Peterson’s Vineyard is just north of the village of Kenwood in the heart of Sonoma and a couple of miles from the winery. It is near the lowlands of Kenwood that, at the winery property, form the Kenwood Wetlands. This topography creates a cool spot, which holds back spring for a couple of weeks and chills the mornings longer into the summer days. This is the terroir that produces the rich flavors framed with bright minerality experienced in this Sauvignon Blanc. We’ve been making SB from Jon Peterson’s vineyard since 1988.
Our S.B., like most, is tank fermented, never seeing oak barrels. This is because the grapes are so darn flavorful. The wine doesn’t need extra enhancement from the barrels. The closed, neutral tank fermentation retains the bright minerality and tropical fruit flavors of the grape. We press the juice out of the whole clusters, meaning we don’t separate or crush the grapes first. The juice is then chilled and settled over several days with an addition of organic Bentonite clay, which helps settle the solids, making the flavors more clear and focused. The Bentonite attracts and settles out much of the protein, which would make the wine cloudy if it got warm. The cold juice is then inoculated with a pure strain of yeast chosen to accentuate the flavors from this particular vineyard, enhancing the terroir. The cold fermentation takes a couple of months after which the wine is cold stabilized so that it won’t produce tartrate crystals when chilled in your refrigerator. Just before bottling, three to four months after harvest, the wine is clarified using a cross flow-clarifier. This makes the wine brilliant and removes any solids that may mask the flavor. Acid and residual sugar are checked in the lab and by taste and corrected to perfectly balance the fruit. Neither needed correction for this bottling. Like all Deerfield wines we hand pick and double sort the grapes to reduce bacteria and other pathogens that can create histamines in the wine. We keep the yeast growing happily by feeding them regularly and giving the adequate oxygen. No sulfite is added before or during fermentation. A small amount is added just before bottling to protect the wine from oxidation during the bottling process. That small amount combines with carbohydrates in the wine to form a harmless and inert salt, sulfate, leaving the wine low in both histamine and sulfites, making it more delicious and healthy — Clean Wine®.
Yes
Yes
DRW
