Love You Bunches Orange 2021

BACKGROUND
    After the success of our first whole-grape, carbonic-fermentation of “white” grapes in 2020, Pete Stolpman spent the first part of 2021 scouring Santa Barbara wine country for potential components for his follow up effort.  He was thrilled to find Gewurztraminer to add color, texture, and an exotic floral + spice component.  Bitter sweetly, this might be the last vintage from the Semillon planted in 1972 on My Friend Matt’s Vineyard in the Los Olivos District AVA as these days, the old vines are producing extremely low yields.     Following the same technique that we employ with the red version of Love You Bunches, Carbonic Sangiovese, we lovingly hand-harvest each bunch to keep the grapes intact for the first week of fermentation.  This process gently extracts skin color and texture while allowing the wine to remain delicate and fresh, without tannin or coarseness.

VINTAGE
The year’s evenly moderate growing conditions left plenty of hang time for 2021 grapes to accumulate beautiful flavors and texture with plenty of balancing acidity.  We harvested the traditionally early-picked varietals for Love You Bunches Orange for over a month, leading to a breadth of ripeness  

SENSORY
The Pinot Gris and Orange Muscat co-ferment provides a redish orange tint while the Gewürztraminer brings a pink peach tone.  The Semillon adds a bright yellow tint to bring the final blend back to an orange hue.  Pinot Gris lends savory rich layers, while the Gewürztraminer brings ripe aromatic aromas and feathery mid-palate stuffing.  The tropical orange muscat becomes integrated into the gewürztraminer while the Semillon brings the finish of the wine to a high-acid crunch.  Over-all the wine shows firm, quenching citrus fruit with loads of mashable, mouth-filling tactile yumminess.