April 2021 Wine of the Month: Sauvignon Blanc
Every month we feature one of our wines, and this month is no different. As we usher in Spring and enjoy those beautiful first warm, sunny days we are proud to be highlighting our Sauvignon Blanc as our April Wine of the Month!
While I would (and have) happily argued that this wine is excellent in any season, I especially love it in the Spring. This wine has a soft, delicate flavor with a nice fruitiness and crisp finish that gently leads you into the warmer months while the subtle minerality begs to be paired with the local seafood and produce that is once again appearing on farm stands across the East End. Maybe it's just me, but is it really Spring if you haven't sat outside in the backyard with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and a plate of freshly shucked local oysters?!
This month we have a number of exciting announcements and blog posts that we will be releasing over the coming weeks, so be sure to check back every Wednesday for exciting recipes, a special giveaway with our friends at Peconic Gold Oysters, and so much more! Plus, as an added bonus, throughout the month of April we are offering $6 glasses of Sauvignon Blanc at the Tasting House, be sure to make a reservation!
A Closer Look
One of our best vintages, in 2019 our Sauvignon Blanc saw changes to our winery program and we couldn't be happier with the results. As you taste this wine you may notice after the initial fruitiness of the wine subsides—gooseberry and lime on the nose and Fuji pear on the palate—you get a nice richness and round mouthfeel accentuated by an almost creamy character. With white wines we often associate creaminess or buttery characteristics with barrel fermented whites, and while this wine does not ever come into contact with oak it does have that rich, creamy depth and complexity on the finish. A newer winemaking technique that we introduced to our white wines in 2019, this wine spends 4 months sur lie after it has completed the fermentation. This process gives it that richness and added depth of flavor.
The term "sur lie" which means "on the lees" in French and refers to the process of aging a wine in contact with its fermentation lees aka the dead yeast cells. But let me step back for a moment and explain—during fermentation, yeast is introduced into the freshly crushed grape juice. The yeast cells actively consume the naturally occurring sugars in the grape juice, producing alcohol, and releasing CO2. When the yeast cells have consumed all of the sugars in the wine, they die and precipitate out of the solution, settling to the bottom of the tank.
These dead yeast cells are then referred to as "lees" and are usually racked off or in other words separated from the wine at the completion of the fermentation process. However in some cases these lees are saved and reintroduced into the wine during the aging process to add a further depth of flavor to the wine, which is what we have done with this vintage. The extended aging sur lie adds a hint of creaminess, a little more roundness to the mouthfeel, and an extra level of depth that you wouldn't see otherwise making it a more interesting and complex wine all around!