Our Muse is estate grown Viognier. This variety is at first lush and playful. Richness on the palate leads to a sense of enchantment. Lest you be confused, Our Muse is at the same time stiff in the spine and not to be taken whimsically.
Viognier is the traditional white wine from Condrieu in the Northern Rhône Valley of France. This variety develops beautiful and delicate aromatics with a rich unctuous mouth feel when grown in Oregon's cool Willamette Valley. Among our 35 acres of vineyard, we have planted just 0.41 acres (594 vines to be exact) of Viognier.
The fruit for this wine was left to hang through the warm and dry month of October to create a Beerenauslese style late harvest wine. The desiccated and slightly botrytis infected berries were whole cluster pressed. The resulting nectar was settled overnight and fermented in stainless steel. Due to the concentration of sugars, the fermentation was arrested at about 15% alcohol leaving a trace of residual sugar. The wine is bottled in 375 ml bottles and finished with a traditional gold capsule.
The Vintage: Some like it hot, and if that is what you are into, then 2015 is your kind of vintage. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that. A clean, fully developed and relatively expressive vintage, 2015 (much like 2014) offers up a significant contrast to the frigidly cold yet scintillating vintages of 2010 and 2011. In the context of Pinot Noir vintages, there are showers and then there are growers.
We have grown wine in nearly the hottest and certainly the coldest vintages ever recorded in the Willamette Valley within a 6 year span. We have triumphed over vintages colder than Champagne, took what appeared to be rotted Chardonnay from Typhoon Pabuk and produced a Botrytis desert wine to rival Sauternes, sweltered under elevated evening temperatures and summer drought conditions that teased an unprecedented early harvest window. And, to borrow a line from Frank, “We did it our way.”
While some experienced pre-mature fermentation again this year, Ernie held out for rain before he pulled the trigger on Cluster Pluck 2015 (He looked so determined at midnight under the full moon doing the rain dance in block 2.) “Hey, whatever works...” Once again, this year the conditions were right for a sticky. This time it is Our Muse Viognier emulating the traditional late harvest beerenauslese style – complete with gold capsule.
You can read the full Harvest After Action Report (AAR) on our FLOG (Farming bLOG):
http://amalierobert.blogspot.com/2015/12/amalie-robert-estate-vintage-update.html
The 2015 vintage was one for the record books. And like 2013, it provided us with a unique opportunity to make a late harvest wine. By mid-September the Viognier had accumulated more than enough sugar to make a nice table wine, but the flavors were nowhere to be found.
So, Ernie said let them hang a bit longer. And so they did and continued to accumulate even more sugar. By mid-October, the sugars were too high to make a dry table wine, but the flavors had started to come on. Again, his decision was to let them hang, and so they did.
By the end of the month, our old friend Botrytis had started to settle in. This was a good sign, especially since the weather was dry. This forced the berries to yield their water, even further concentrating the aromas and flavors. Our Muse from the 2015 vintage is a late harvest Viognier made in the Beerenauslese style.
There are plenty of rules and regulations for what can be called a Beerenauslese, but one of the most important factors for making this style of wine is the concentration of sugars and what you do with them. We harvested at well over 28 brix, so we had the concentration factor on our side. We whole cluster pressed these semi-desiccated and Botrytis concentrated berries and settled the juice to ferment in stainless steel.
The second most important factor in a Beerenauslese style wine is to let the juice ferment until the yeast produce enough alcohol to arrest the fermentation. That happens at just around 15.6% alcohol. The remaining sugar is left unfermented. And this is one of those times when it is better to be lucky than good. The remaining sweetness needs to be supported by the acidity of the wine, which, of course, it is.
The 2015 Our Muse Viognier is bottled in 375 ml bottles and finished with a traditional gold capsule. The gold capsule is used in Beerenauslese style wines to alert the consumer that this is indeed a special wine. The 375 ml bottles are used so that you can remember what it was that you enjoyed the evening before. 63 cases produced.