2022 LOLA Artisanal Series Calistoga Sémillon

Our 3 acre Sémillon vineyard is planted adjacent to Seth & Rafa's home property on Greenwood Ave in Calistoga. The soil is a rocky mix of volcanic ash and bale clay along a slight western slope draining toward Garrett Creek. The grapes are medium size on tight clusters formed within a bilateral cordon trained vertical trellised canopy. We pick these grapes at 20 Brix, 3.1ph in early September to preserve natural acidity and vibrancy. 30% of the grapes are de-stemmed and fermented on skins in an open top tank. The rest are  whole cluster pressed and the juice is allowed a native cool fermentation to dryness in a mixture of neutral oak and stainless steel barrels maintaining temperature throughout at under 72 degrees. Both lots are racked once at bottling and are blended together having minimal SO2 additions of under 40ppm total from harvest to bottling, when it is bottled un-fined and unfiltered. The resulting wine is very light, fresh, crisp and smooth on the palette with beautiful aromas of citrus, mango and white flowers. Our style of Sémillon is inspired by an obscure style that is produced in the Hunter Valley of Australia. These wines are highly respected in the wine world and known to be very age worthy.