Harvest Review and Nouveau

By Assistant Winemaker, Anthony Gallegos

Here at Le Vigne, we are getting bundled up and cozy for the winter and the wines and vines are no exception. With the completion of harvest, the vines are settling into dormancy after a bountiful 2021 vintage. The wines from this vintage are each finished with primary fermentation. Most are getting through malolactic fermentation (MLF) and being put to barrel to rest after a long journey and transformation from vine to wine.

First Harvest of Nero d’Avola

We have a few key wines to announce from this vintage: This year we had our first ever crop of Nero d’Avola and we are excited to share it with you when it’s ready for release in 2024! The new Nero’s bright acidity helps highlight its uniquely earthy nose and lovely cranberry notes. We are also bringing our superb Viognier back for release in 2022 and it is shaping up to be our best yet! After spending time in the barrel through primary fermentation, we monitored the MLF to ensure we capture our Viognier just before it is fully completed. It is a delicate balance we are trying to achieve with our Viognier as wines that have not undergone MLF can have an austere and sharp palate but if it goes completely through MLF, it can be flabby and may lose some very pretty white flower and bright grapefruit notes.

Primitivo being put into a tank for the carbonic maceration process

If you have not already tried our 2021 Primitivo Nouveau, stop in and pick some up before it is all gone as we only produced 47 cases of this beautiful Beaujolais nouveau style Primitivo. It was made through carbonic maceration, which means its fermented whole cluster in an anaerobic environment (oxygen-free). To achieve this, throughout the fermentation we keep it in a tank blanketed with CO2, hence the term “carbonic maceration”. This year’s Rosé of Sangiovese is stunning and quickly gearing up to surpass our previous vintages, and it is 100% direct to press rosé!

We have several new plantings in our Domenico estate vineyard that are just starting to bear fruit, giving Terry and me more tools to work with. Our Block 04 malbec, tannat, petite sirah, and grenache are all wonderfully expressive wines this year, and we are very excited to be offering grenache again to everyone once it’s released. Among all the excitement of these new 2021 wines, we are also in the midst of bottling up our 2019 red wines, among which we are releasing our very first Estate Mourvèdre! Our Estate Primitivo will also be bottled by early January and released in 2022.

Anthony & Terry review wines

These days, as Terry and I are making our final barrel selections on the remaining 2019 vintage wines and reviewing our 2021 vintage wines, it serves as a time for reflection and for us to view these vintages as a roadmap for future vintages. We are grateful for the stellar team we have here at Le Vigne and nothing would be possible without the tremendous effort everyone puts into the work they do. Whether our Vineyard Foreman, Rafael tending to our vineyards, Michelle our Enologist keeping up on all the wine analysis, Oswaldo our Cellarmaster working with our cellar team processing fruit and keeping the wine protected, Daniel and our bottling crew making sure every drop of wine gets bottled and shipped, Joe and our tasting room staff sharing our wines with you, or Jillian preparing your wine club allocation, it is truly a team effort.

There are a ton of wonderful things coming and a lot to be excited about in the years to come. We are all happy to share these beautifully crafted wines with everyone. From our Le Vigne Famiglia to yours!