There's a new kid on the block...Meet, Dreamboat
As we grow as a winery, we have the opportunity to expand our offerings as well as the people and places we work with. We've had our eye on a beautiful vineyard with steep slopes on the banks of Clear Lake for a few vintages now. Alex, our winemaker, worked with this fruit in the past. However, we didn't have the opportunity to work with the fruit again until last harvest. Lovett Vineyard is our first vineyard in Lake County, a place we think deserves much more credit than it gets for many reasons. It's an unkept secret and we love its wild and rugged nature.
Dreamboat is a true field blend made up of all of the red and white varieties planted at Lovett Vineyard. For the whites, we have Picpoul, Viognier, Roussanne & Vermentino; grapes normally found in the Rhone Valley and Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. They do extremely well in warm dry climates like Lake County. These grapes add so much to this wine; texture, body, and beautifully delicate aromatics. Petite Sirah (Durif) & Mouvedre, the two red grapes in this blend, also thrive in hot climates and are native to Southern France. These two varieties give Dreamboat its color, tannin and fresh berry flavors.
So why did we name this wine Dreamboat? The color is pretty dreamy. The wine itself will sail you into a fruit punch sunset and well, with the whole lakeside thing we kind of had to.
Now let's get down to how we make this wine. The fruit is hand harvested. The whites are picked a few days before the reds. The whites are de-stemmed and moved to a tank to soak and begin maceration. A few days later we harvested the reds, the Mourvedre is thrown in uncrushed as whole clusters on top of the whites. The Petite Sirah is de-stemmed and soaked for two days before being pressed into the tank of the whites and the Mourvedre. After five days of maceration the whole lot is pressed and barreled down to finish a long and slow fermentation (allowing it to retain great aromatics). It's aged on its lees in 225L neutral oak barrels for 7 months, with no stirring and topped every 2 weeks. As always we don't add or subtract anything and the wine is unfined, unfiltered and has no sulfur added. We made 532 cases. Label art by Daniel Castro.
So what does this wine taste like? Watermelon gummies, grenadine, guava and orgeat (almond). You can call this rosé, you can call it pink, you can call it red; we'll leave that up to you. We think this is best served with a chill (55 degrees). It's also happy a touch cooler but too cold and you'll lose a lot of the aromatics. Pair this with some cool water, warm weather and some good tunes. May we suggest Dead & Company's Brown-Eyed Women?
