Saralee's Vineyard, Russian River Valley
From the same vineyard managers of our Russian River viognier, we were able to get a small amount of cool-climate marsanne and roussanne. Given the surging popularity of Rhone whites, it's extremely difficult to find these varietals. Because we've had a number of requests to blend these, we are making these available either standalone or as a blend. These are young vines - planted in 2002 on sandy loam soil and planted close together with only four feet between vines. They're cropped to a single cluster per shoot using the same aggressive viticultural practices we use for the Russian River viognier. If there's any of this fruit remaining at the end of the season, we're going to mist it to try to get some botrytis going to make some late harvest wine.